扶锄头的人

――写于米勒的世界名画观后

E. C. 麦克哈姆作[1]

傅正明译

上帝依照自己的形象造人，依照他的形象造男造女。

－－<创世纪>

祖辈的重担压弯了腰脊，

他手扶锄头凝望着大地，

背上驮着繁华世界的重负，

脸上布满时代遗留的空虚。

是谁使他痴呆如一头老黄牛 －－

既没有欢乐也无所谓悲哀，

无所谓绝望也无所谓希冀？

是谁使他粗野的下巴下垂？

是谁的铁腕使他紧锁双眉？

是谁将他脑中的灵光吹熄？

上帝创造生灵，让他统治海洋

主宰大地，探索宇宙的奥秘，

寻求神力，感受永恒的热情，

难道到头来就是如此可怜的东西？

上帝塑造星辰， 标明运行的轨迹，

难道就梦出如此可怕的梦呓？

既然在地狱每个魔窟的最底层

也找不出比这更恐怖的形体 －－

找不出更多的对贪婪世界的怨责，

找不出更糟的对人类灵魂的惊扰，

找不出更大的对宇宙秩序的冲击。

他与六翼天使[2]何止宵壤之隔？

对于这苦役的转轮之下的奴隶，

柏拉图或七星诗社[3]的高雅有何意义？

入云的歌声染彩的晨曦

绽红滴露的玫瑰又有何意义？

可怕的形体浓缩了祖辈的困难，

压弯的腰脊展示着时代的悲剧；

被抛弃被劫掠被亵渎被剥夺的人

向世界的判官发出抗议的吼声，

吼声震天呼唤着一场暴风雨！

啊，各国的主宰，老爷和大人先生，

这被扭曲的失却灵魂的怪物

就是你们献给上帝的工艺品？

你们将怎样伸直他压弯的腰脊？

你们将怎样还给他不朽的灵魂？

你们将怎样让他重新仰望天光

奏响音乐恢复那甜美的梦境？

你们将怎样洗刷历史的耻辱和罪恶

治愈沉疴固疾，抚平累累伤痕？

啊，各国的大人先生，

未来同这个人的宿债将如何结清？

当反抗的风暴席卷世界之时，

怎样回答义正词严的诘问？

在千百年沉默的酝酿过后，

当喑哑的“恐怖”突然给上帝一个答复，

一切王国和养尊处优的王公贵族，

一切将他扭曲成非人的人，

怎样的结局将等待着你们？！

              1899年

译注：

[1] 译自美国诗人E. C.麦克哈姆 (1852-1950) 的诗集《扶锄头的人及其他诗歌》（The Man with the Hoe and Other Poems,1899)。米勒(Jean Francois Millet, 1814－1875),法国画家，巴比松画派的代表人物，曾长期在巴比松村庄从事农耕，<扶锄头的人>是他的名作之一。

[2] 六翼天使是九级天使中地位最高者。

[3] 七星诗社是文艺复兴时期法国的一个诗歌流派。

原诗：

Edwin Charles Markham

The Man with the Hoe

--Written after Seeing Millet's World-Famous Painting

Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back, the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?

Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land;
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the passion of Eternity?
Is this the dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And marked their ways upon the ancient deep?
Down all the caverns of Hell to their last gulf
There is no shape more terrible than this--
More tongued with cries against the world's blind greed--
More filled with signs and portents for the soul--
More packed with danger to the universe.

What gulfs between him and the seraphim!
Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
Are Plato and the swing of the Pleiades?
What the long reaches of the peaks of song,
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?
Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;
Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop;
Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,
Plundered, profaned and disinherited,
Cries protest to the Powers that made the world,
A protest that is also prophecy.

O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
Is this the handiwork you give to God,
This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?
How will you ever straighten up this shape;
Touch it again with immortality;
Give back the upward looking and the light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream;
Make right the immemorial infamies,
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?