克鲁索在英格兰/毕肖普

克鲁索在英格兰

一次新的火山喷发，报上说，

上周我也读到了

几艘船曾目击一座岛屿的诞生：

起初隔着数十英里，喷出水汽，

接着是块黑斑——大概是玄武岩——

在大副的望远镜筒中升起

然后它像苍蝇般挂在了地平线上。

他们给它命了名。只可惜我可怜的往日之岛，它仍将

不会再被发现，不会再被命名。

而没有一本书搞清过这件事情。

好吧，我有过五十二座

小小的可怜的岛，只消滑上几步

就可攀上山顶——

死寂的火山如堆堆灰烬。

我常常坐在那座最高的火山边缘

数其他立着的火山，

那些铅灰的火山赤裸着，它们的头被风吹尽。

我会想，如果这些火山的大小

和我以为的火山是一样大的话，那我就

变成了巨人；

要是我已经变成了巨人的话，

我还怎么能想象

那些山羊和海龟的大小，

或者是海鸥的，再或者是那些重叠的浪花的

——那些发着光的六角形的浪花

愈发地近，更近，却不止息，

闪啊闪啊，尽管天空

总是沉沉。

我的岛看起来就像

某片给云造的垃圾场。整个半球的残云

都到这里，挂在

火山口上——火山炽热的喉咙

摸起来实在是太烫。

这就是为何这儿会有这么多雨？

这就是为何这周遭总是常常发出嘶嘶地鸣响？

海龟它们缓缓爬过了，背着穹顶，

也如茶壶般嘶嘶响。

（当然，像这样的任何一种水壶

我都用了好多年，也找了好多年。）

一叠叠涌向大海的熔岩，

也会嘶嘶响。我会掉头。接着它们像是给我证明

有更多海龟。

熔岩遍布沙滩，驳杂斑斓，

黑的，红的，白的，灰的；

大理石纹的色彩化作精美展览。

而我还有水龙卷。噢，

一次有六七个，远远地，

它们来而往，进又退，

窜上云层，踩着补丁般的

迸溅的磨损的白。

这玻璃的烟囱，它灵活舞动，又渐渐变弱，

犹如僧侣的玻璃瓶…...我注视着

水在螺旋中升入那些龙卷，就像烟。

是的，很美，可惜太短暂了。

我常常沉溺于怜惜自己的不幸。

“我活该么？我想一定是的。

要不然我怎么会到这儿呢？这一切，

是否真是我在某刻自己做出的选择？

我是真的忘了，但大概也有可能。”

不过，自怜又有什么错呢？

我的脚悬在火山崖口边上

悠然地晃来荡去，我对自己说

“不幸是从家开始的。”所以愈感不幸，

我便愈如在家中。

太阳落入海里去了；同一个奇怪的太阳

还要从海里头钻出来，

因为世上只有一个它，也只有一个我。

这座岛有诸事物于万千个里头的每一种：

一只树蜗牛，一枚薄壳儿

和它一片明亮的紫罗兰色，一切被蜗牛爬过，

爬过万千个里的一株树，

这是乌黑树丛中的一项事务。

蜗牛壳堆在那些树丛底下，

要是隔远点儿，

打赌你准会把它们当做鸢尾花圃。

那儿还有一种莓果，暗红色的那种。

我都试过，一种又一种，花了好几个钟。

有点酸，但还行，没有不良反应；

所以我做了家酿果酒。我会把那些

可怕的、翻着泡的，刺舌的东西喝下

它们直冲我脑门

然后我会吹奏自制的长笛

（我觉得它能发出地球上最怪异的声音）

接着晕乎乎地，嚷嚷着混入山羊群中跳舞。

家酿、自制！我们不都是吗？

我强烈地爱上了

在我岛屿事业中最小的那种。

不，还不够准确，因为真正最小的事业

是关于悲伤的哲学。

因为我懂的还不够多。

为何我对一些东西总是不够了解？

希腊戏剧和天文学？我读的

那些书满是空白；

那些诗——好吧，我试着

朝着我的鸢尾花圃背诵，

“它们在内部之眼中闪耀，

而这就是极乐…...”什么极乐？

我回去后最先要做的事之一

就是把它查清楚。

小岛闻起来有山羊和鸟粪的味道。

山羊是白的，海鸥也是，

它们都太过温顺，否则它们就会想

我也该是只羊，或者海鸥。

咩，咩，咩，嘎，噶，噶，

咩...噶...咩...那些叫声

仍在我耳边挥之不去；耳朵现在还犯着痛。

那些疑问地嘎嘎的叫唤声，和落在地上的

一场嘶嘶响的雨中的含混的回答

还有嘶嘶响，海龟它们爬过

这些抓着我的神经。

而当所有海鸥一齐飞离，听起来就像

它们是强风中的大树的，枝叶纷扬。

而我会阖上双目，想象一棵树，

比如说，一棵橡树，它有真切的影子，荫在某处。

我听说有过得了岛屿病的牛。

我觉得山羊也会。

一只公山羊会站在那座火山之巅

我把它叫做希望之山或绝望之山

（我有足够时间来琢磨这些名字）

它叫啊叫啊，嗅着空气。

我会抓住他的山羊胡子，看着他。

看他的瞳孔，水平的瞳孔，突然紧缩

却什么都不露出来，除了一点点恶意。

正是这些颜色，让我真的厌倦了！

有一天我给一只羔羊染上明朗的红

用我的莓果浆，只是为了看看

一点儿不同的。

结果羊妈妈没有认出它来。

更糟糕的是梦。当然，我会梦到食物

和爱，它们令我高兴

而非相反。可接着我会梦到自己

比如割开了一个婴儿的喉咙，把她错当为

一只羊羔。我会有噩梦

梦到其它岛

在我的岛外远远蔓延开来，无数

岛，岛卵生着岛，

像是青蛙卵变成

岛的蝌蚪，可我明白，我不得不

活在每座岛上，最后在每一座岛上

花几十年，记载他们的植物志，

动物志，和地理志。

就在我想，我再也不能多容忍

又一分钟时，星期五来了。

（对这件事的描述把一切都搞错了。）

星期五是个好人。

星期五是个好人，而我们成了朋友。

只可惜他不是女的！

我想过繁衍后代，

我猜，他也想过，可怜的男孩。

有时他会爱抚小羔羊，

会和它们赛跑，或者抱一只四处走走。

——看起来不错；他的身材很美。

接下来有一天，他们来了，把我们分开。

如今我活在这里，在另一座

看起来不像是岛屿的岛上，但谁说了算呢？

我的血液里面尽是他们；我的头颅

喂养着岛。可是那群岛

终于渐渐丢了。我老了。

我也愈发没有意思，我喝起货真价实的茶，

我被一堆乏味的木料围着。

刀搁在架板上——

如柄十字架，意义透过它散发出来。

它活过。我多少年来

乞求它，又恳求它，别折断啊？

我深深了解过它的每一道刻痕、刮痕，

了解它浅蓝的刃、磨损的尖，

以及柄上木质纹理的线纹……

可如今它再不会看向我了。

活生生的灵魂已经娟娟淌尽。

我的视线在它上边停留一会儿，又移开。

本地博物馆请我

把一切都留给他们：

那把长笛，那把刀，那双缩了水的鞋，

我那件掉毛的山羊皮裤子

（毛里面已有蛀虫），

还有那把阳伞，它费了我好长时间

记清伞骨如何伸缩的路线。

它还能用，折起来后，

看上去像是拔光了毛的嶙峋的飞禽。

可谁会想要这些东西呢？

——除了星期五，我亲爱的星期五，死于麻疹

十七年前到的一个三月。

Crusoe in England

Elizabeth Bishop

A new volcano has erupted, the papers say, and last week I was reading where some ship saw an island being born: at first a breath of steam, ten miles away; and then a black fleck—basalt, probably— rose in the mate’s binoculars and caught on the horizon like a fly. They named it. But my poor old island’s still un-rediscovered, un-renamable. None of the books has ever got it right.

Well, I had fifty-two miserable, small volcanoes I could climb with a few slithery strides— volcanoes dead as ash heaps. I used to sit on the edge of the highest one and count the others standing up, naked and leaden, with their heads blown off. I’d think that if they were the size I thought volcanoes should be, then I had become a giant; and if I had become a giant, I couldn’t bear to think what size the goats and turtles were, or the gulls, or the overlapping rollers —a glittering hexagon of rollers closing and closing in, but never quite, glittering and glittering, though the sky was mostly overcast.

My island seemed to be a sort of cloud-dump. All the hemisphere’s left-over clouds arrived and hung above the craters—their parched throats were hot to touch. Was that why it rained so much? And why sometimes the whole place hissed? The turtles lumbered by, high-domed, hissing like teakettles. (And I’d have given years, or taken a few, for any sort of kettle, of course.) The folds of lava, running out to sea, would hiss. I’d turn. And then they’d prove to be more turtles. The beaches were all lava, variegated, black, red, and white, and gray; the marbled colors made a fine display. And I had waterspouts. Oh, half a dozen at a time, far out, they’d come and go, advancing and retreating, their heads in cloud, their feet in moving patches of scuffed-up white. Glass chimneys, flexible, attenuated, sacerdotal beings of glass ... I watched the water spiral up in them like smoke. Beautiful, yes, but not much company.

I often gave way to self-pity. “Do I deserve this? I suppose I must. I wouldn’t be here otherwise. Was there a moment when I actually chose this? I don’t remember, but there could have been.” What’s wrong about self-pity, anyway? With my legs dangling down familiarly over a crater’s edge, I told myself “Pity should begin at home.” So the more pity I felt, the more I felt at home.

The sun set in the sea; the same odd sun rose from the sea, and there was one of it and one of me. The island had one kind of everything: one tree snail, a bright violet-blue with a thin shell, crept over everything, over the one variety of tree, a sooty, scrub affair. Snail shells lay under these in drifts and, at a distance, you’d swear that they were beds of irises. There was one kind of berry, a dark red. I tried it, one by one, and hours apart. Sub-acid, and not bad, no ill effects; and so I made home-brew. I’d drink the awful, fizzy, stinging stuff that went straight to my head and play my home-made flute (I think it had the weirdest scale on earth) and, dizzy, whoop and dance among the goats. Home-made, home-made! But aren’t we all? I felt a deep affection for the smallest of my island industries. No, not exactly, since the smallest was a miserable philosophy.

Because I didn’t know enough. Why didn’t I know enough of something? Greek drama or astronomy? The books I’d read were full of blanks; the poems—well, I tried reciting to my iris-beds, “They flash upon that inward eye, which is the bliss ...” The bliss of what? One of the first things that I did when I got back was look it up.

The island smelled of goat and guano. The goats were white, so were the gulls, and both too tame, or else they thought I was a goat, too, or a gull. Baa, baa, baa and shriek, shriek, shriek, baa ... shriek ... baa ... I still can’t shake them from my ears; they’re hurting now. The questioning shrieks, the equivocal replies over a ground of hissing rain and hissing, ambulating turtles got on my nerves. When all the gulls flew up at once, they sounded like a big tree in a strong wind, its leaves. I’d shut my eyes and think about a tree, an oak, say, with real shade, somewhere. I’d heard of cattle getting island-sick. I thought the goats were. One billy-goat would stand on the volcano I’d christened Mont d’Espoir or Mount Despair (I’d time enough to play with names), and bleat and bleat, and sniff the air. I’d grab his beard and look at him. His pupils, horizontal, narrowed up and expressed nothing, or a little malice. I got so tired of the very colors! One day I dyed a baby goat bright red with my red berries, just to see something a little different. And then his mother wouldn’t recognize him.

Dreams were the worst. Of course I dreamed of food and love, but they were pleasant rather than otherwise. But then I’d dream of things like slitting a baby’s throat, mistaking it for a baby goat. I’d have nightmares of other islands stretching away from mine, infinities of islands, islands spawning islands, like frogs’ eggs turning into polliwogs of islands, knowing that I had to live on each and every one, eventually, for ages, registering their flora, their fauna, their geography.

Just when I thought I couldn’t stand it another minute longer, Friday came. (Accounts of that have everything all wrong.) Friday was nice. Friday was nice, and we were friends. If only he had been a woman! I wanted to propagate my kind, and so did he, I think, poor boy. He’d pet the baby goats sometimes, and race with them, or carry one around. —Pretty to watch; he had a pretty body.

And then one day they came and took us off.

Now I live here, another island, that doesn’t seem like one, but who decides? My blood was full of them; my brain bred islands. But that archipelago has petered out. I’m old. I’m bored, too, drinking my real tea, surrounded by uninteresting lumber. The knife there on the shelf— it reeked of meaning, like a crucifix. It lived. How many years did I beg it, implore it, not to break? I knew each nick and scratch by heart, the bluish blade, the broken tip, the lines of wood-grain on the handle ... Now it won’t look at me at all. The living soul has dribbled away. My eyes rest on it and pass on.

The local museum’s asked me to leave everything to them: the flute, the knife, the shrivelled shoes, my shedding goatskin trousers (moths have got in the fur), the parasol that took me such a time remembering the way the ribs should go. It still will work but, folded up, looks like a plucked and skinny fowl. How can anyone want such things? —And Friday, my dear Friday, died of measles seventeen years ago come March.