两首诗歌，两个时代

很巧，最近读到了这两首诗，两首诗歌给人的感觉不同，一个温暖，一个冷酷。

这是不同时代风格的两首诗歌，读完脑海里就出现两个词——现代和后现代。然后百科了一下，作者生活的年代还真的是这两个时代，分别对应19世纪和20世纪。

不过，两首诗都是用最温柔的文字再现了其时代人心最柔软的部分。

下面两首完整诗歌：

第一首：

If You Were Coming in the Fall
Emily Dickinson

If you were coming in the fall,
I’d brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spurn,
As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I’d wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed,
I’d count them on my hand,
Subtracting till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemens land.

If certain, when this life was out,
That yours and mine should be,
I’d toss it yonder like a rind,
And taste eternity.

But now, all ignorant of the length
Of time’s uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the goblin bee,
That will not state its sting.

作者用befall一词，看了很多版本竟然没有人翻译出这一情思状态来。这里我要说明一下，诗是不可被翻译的，什么是诗呢？诗就是翻译后被丢掉的部分。如果你想翻译诗歌，那么这种翻译就是再创作，原诗歌相当于当于一个参考文本，而翻译后的诗歌相当于阅读后的感想。所以，这里我倾向于意译，即通过领会作者想要表达的思想内涵而进行创作。

再回到befall这个词，牛津词典解释如下：

verb, used only in the third person仅用于第三人称 (literary)
something befalls somebody (of something unpleasant令人不快的事) to happen to somebody降临到（某人）头上；发生在（某人）身上
e.g. They were unaware of the fate that was to befall them.他们并不知道即将降临到他们头上的厄运。

通过这个词，能感受到诗中作者想表达的是：我思念的心上人啊，你什么时候能来呢，这每分每秒（befall）都是对我的摧残和折磨，我是多么希望能立马看到你呀。当我们共情了作者想要表达此时自己的思念情绪了，也就把握住了这一精神内核，接下来自己就可以有的放矢进行创作了，也许你的作品比原作者的艺术性等等还要高也不为过。

第二首：

Out, Out—
Robert Frost

The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
His sister stood beside them in her apron
To tell them "Supper." At the word, the saw,
As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap—
He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh,
As he swung toward them holding up the hand
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all—
Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man's work, though a child at heart—
He saw all spoiled. "Don't let him cut my hand off—
The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!"
So. But the hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then—the watcher at his pulse took fright.
No one believed. They listened at his heart.
Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

这首诗歌作者为我们描绘了一个完整的感人画面，读起来很温暖，可直到最后一句，画面戛然而止，令人怅然若思。这不得不让人反思这个时代的虚无，是的，这就是后现代性。这是一个流动的、解构的、破碎的、冷漠的、可是对于个人来说是势单力薄、无能为力的后现代，是否真的像《最美的哲学史》作者最后说的那样，通过爱的革命来应对这个解构的冲击呢？还是通过哈贝马斯倡导的行为交往理论？这里有很多选项等待我们去回应。