The Flood / 淹水

這個夏天，全世界好多地方淹水，翻到畢夏普的詩時，讀起來特別有感觸，只不過現實的版本赤裸許多。


This past summer many parts of the world have been seriously flooded. Bishop’s poem, though poignantly beautiful, reads more like a romanticized version of the reality.

The Flood

淹水

Elizabeth Bishop

伊莉莎白‧畢夏普

It finds the park first, and the trees

   turn wavery and wet;

but all the extinguished traffic knows

   that it will drown the steeples yet.

先是公園遭殃，再來是樹木

隨波逐流，

但是已經淹沒於水面下的車輛知道

有一天尖塔也會淪陷。

 

The battered houses, rows of brick,

   are clear as quartz; the color thins

to amethyst, —the chimney-pots

    and weather-vanes stick up like fins.

受損的房屋、整排的磚塊

像石英清澈，顏色褪去後

像紫水晶；煙囪

和風向計如魚鰭露出水面

 

And slowly down the fluid streets

   the cars and trolleys, goggled-eyed,

enamelled bright like gaping fish,

   drift home on the suburban tide.

緩慢地沿著淹沒的街道

小汽車和電車戴著蛙鏡

上漆般的明亮，如目瞪口呆的魚

隨著市區的潮水漂往家的方向

 

Along the airy upper beach

   to the minutely glittering sky

two sand-pipers have stepped, and left

   four star-prints high and dry.

沿著高地的海灘

朝向微微發光的天空

兩隻鷸鳥留下足跡後離開

是乾燥的高地裡的四顆星星

Beyond the town, subaqueous,

   the green hills change to green-mossed shells;

and at the church, to warn the ships above,

   eight times they ring the bells.

城市之外，一切淹沒於水中，

綠色的山丘變成覆著青苔的貝殼；

而在教堂，為了警告遠方的船隻，

他們敲了八次鐘。