2016年4月13日 星期三

To -- -- --. Ulalume: A Ballad BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

  • 李德明等人/譯,林盛彬/導讀,《為亡靈彈奏》,台北市:桂冠,1994年。《為亡靈彈奏瑪祖卡》桂林:灕江,2015

引詩:(Our talk had been serious and sober,)
      But our thoughts they were palsied and sere—
      Our memories were treacherous and sere—

To -- -- --. Ulalume: A Ballad

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

palsy

Pronunciation: /ˈpɔːlzi/

VERB (palsiespalsyingpalsied)

[WITH OBJECT]
Affect with paralysis and involuntary tremors:she feels as if the muscles on her face are palsied(as adjective palsiedfigurative the old boy network laid its palsied hand upon the business of wealth creation

sere 1 

Pronunciation: /sɪə/ 

(also sear)

ADJECTIVE

literary
(Especially of vegetation) dry or withered:small green vineyards encircled by vast sear fields


To -- -- --. Ulalume: A Ballad


BY EDGAR ALLAN POE
The skies they were ashen and sober;
      The leaves they were crispéd and sere—
      The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
      Of my most immemorial year;
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
      In the misty mid region of Weir—
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
      In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

Here once, through an alley Titanic,
      Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul—
      Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
These were days when my heart was volcanic
      As the scoriac rivers that roll—
      As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
      In the ultimate climes of the pole—
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
      In the realms of the boreal pole.

Our talk had been serious and sober,
      But our thoughts they were palsied and sere—
      Our memories were treacherous and sere—
For we knew not the month was October,
      And we marked not the night of the year—
      (Ah, night of all nights in the year!)
We noted not the dim lake of Auber—
      (Though once we had journeyed down here)—
We remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
      Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

And now, as the night was senescent
      And star-dials pointed to morn—
      As the star-dials hinted of morn—
At the end of our path a liquescent
      And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
      Arose with a duplicate horn—
Astarte's bediamonded crescent
      Distinct with its duplicate horn.

And I said—"She is warmer than Dian:
      She rolls through an ether of sighs—
      She revels in a region of sighs:
She has seen that the tears are not dry on
      These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
And has come past the stars of the Lion
      To point us the path to the skies—
      To the Lethean peace of the skies—
Come up, in despite of the Lion,
      To shine on us with her bright eyes—
Come up through the lair of the Lion,
      With love in her luminous eyes."

But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
      Said—"Sadly this star I mistrust—
      Her pallor I strangely mistrust:—
Oh, hasten! oh, let us not linger!
      Oh, fly!—let us fly!—for we must."
In terror she spoke, letting sink her
      Wings till they trailed in the dust—
In agony sobbed, letting sink her
      Plumes till they trailed in the dust—
      Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

I replied—"This is nothing but dreaming:
      Let us on by this tremulous light!
      Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
Its Sybilic splendor is beaming
      With Hope and in Beauty to-night:—
      See!—it flickers up the sky through the night!
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
      And be sure it will lead us aright—
We safely may trust to a gleaming
      That cannot but guide us aright,
      Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
      And tempted her out of her gloom—
      And conquered her scruples and gloom:
And we passed to the end of the vista,
      But were stopped by the door of a tomb—
      By the door of a legended tomb;
And I said—"What is written, sweet sister,
      On the door of this legended tomb?"
      She replied—"Ulalume—Ulalume—
      'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
      As the leaves that were crispèd and sere—
      As the leaves that were withering and sere,
And I cried—"It was surely October
      On this very night of last year
      That I journeyed—I journeyed down here—
      That I brought a dread burden down here—
      On this night of all nights in the year,
      Oh, what demon has tempted me here?
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber—
      This misty mid region of Weir—
Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber—
      In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."

Said we, then—the two, then—"Ah, can it
      Have been that the woodlandish ghouls—
      The pitiful, the merciful ghouls—
To bar up our way and to ban it
      From the secret that lies in these wolds—
      From the thing that lies hidden in these wolds—
Had drawn up the spectre of a planet
      From the limbo of lunary souls—
This sinfully scintillant planet
      From the Hell of the planetary souls?"

wold 

Pronunciation: /wəʊld/ 

NOUN

[OFTEN IN PLACE NAMES] (usually wolds)
(In Britain) a piece of high, open uncultivated land or moor:the Lincolnshire Wolds

Origin

Old English wald 'wooded upland', of Germanic origin; perhaps related to wild. Compare with Weald.

ghoul 

Pronunciation: /ɡuːl/ 

NOUN

1An evil spirit or phantom, especially one supposed to rob graves and feed on dead bodies.
2A person morbidly interested in death or disaster.

Origin

Late 18th century: from Arabic ġūl, a desert demon believed to rob graves and devour corpses.
More
  • Ghoul is from Arabic ġūl, a desert demon believed to rob graves and devour corpses.

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