莎翁盛名下的英格兰
2005-04-29GeorgeGissing
George Gissing
今天我读了莎翁名作《暴风雨》……有很多理由让我庆幸自己出生于英格兰,这其中很重要的一点是因为我能用自己的母语阅读莎士比亚。若是设想自己不能面对面地去认识他,而只能聆听他那遥远的声音,并且是一种需经一番苦苦思索才能触动心灵的声音,那我一定会感到心灰意冷。我常常这样想,我可以读懂荷马,而且可以肯定地说,假如有谁能欣赏荷马的作品,那一定就是我了;可是,能否梦想,哪怕是一闪念间的梦想,我能完全领悟荷马那优美动听的声音吗?我能像当初在古希腊海滩上漫步的古希腊人那样,领会他诗篇里的每一个字眼吗?我知道,越过那遥远的时空,传到我耳边的只不过是一个隐隐约约而又断断续续的回声;我也知道,这微弱的回声,若不是融汇着那远古世界灿烂的光辉,熔铸着那富有青春活力的记忆,那它将会更加微弱。让每个国度都为它的诗人感到欣慰吧,因为诗人就意味着这国度本身,诗人就是这国度的伟大和甜蜜所在,诗人就是人们生死与共的,难以言表的珍贵遗产。当我合上书时,丝丝爱戴和崇敬久久萦绕在我心中。我是全心身去拥抱这位伟大而神秘的大师,还是投入那因他而魅力无穷的岛屿?我不得而知。因为我无法将大师与岛屿分开。正是那无与伦比的伟大的声音在我心中所唤起的“爱戴”和“崇敬”,早已将莎士比亚和英格兰融为一体了。
Shakespeare's Island From Private Papersof Henry Ryecroft
TO-DAY I have read The Tempest. . . Among the many reasons which make me glad to have been born in England, one of the first is that I read Shakespeare in my mother tongue. If I try to imagine myself as one who cannot know him face to face, who hears him only speaking from afar, and that in accents which only through the laboring intelligence can touch the living soul, there comes upon me a sense of chill discouragement, of dreary deprivation. I am wont to think that I can read Homer, and, assuredly, if any man enjoys him, it is I; but can I for a moment dream that Homer yields me all his music, that his word is to me as to him who walked by the Hellenic shore when Hellas lived? I know that there reaches me across the vast of time no more than a faint and broken echo; I know that it would be fainter still, but for its blending with those memories of youth which are as a glimmer of the world's primeval glory. Let every land have joy of its poet; for the poet is the land itself, all its greatness and its sweetness, all that incommunicable heritage for which men live and die. As I close the book, love and reverence possess me. Whether does my full heart turn to the great Enchanter, or to the Island upon which he has laid his spell? I know not. I cannot think of them apart. In the love and reverence awakened by that voice of voices, Shakespeare and England are but one.