a reading of life-第9章
按键盘上方向键 ← 或 → 可快速上下翻页,按键盘上的 Enter 键可回到本书目录页,按键盘上方向键 ↑ 可回到本页顶部!
————未阅读完?加入书签已便下次继续阅读!
Inherit onward of their origin;
And cancelled blessings will the current length
Reveal till they know need of shaping strength。
'Tis not in men to recognize the need
Before they clash in hosts; in hosts they bleed。
Then may sharp suffering their nature grind;
Of rabble passions grow the chieftain Mind。
Yet mark where still broad Nile boasts thousands fed;
For tens up the safe mountains at his head。
Few would be fed; not far his course prolong;
Save for the troublous blood which makes him strong。
… That rings of truth! More do your people thrive;
Your Many are more merrily alive
Than erewhile when I gloried in the page
Of radiant singer and anointed sage。
Greece was my lamp: burnt out for lack of oil;
Rome; Python Rome; prey of its robber spoil!
All structures built upon a narrow space
Must fall; from having not your hosts for base。
O thrice must one be you; to see them shift
Along their desert flats; here dash; there drift;
With faith; that of privations and spilt blood;
Comes Reason armed to clear or bank the flood!
And thrice must one be you; to wait release
From duress in the swamp of their increase。
At which oppressive scene; beyond arrest;
A darkness not with stars of heaven dressed;
Philosophers behold; desponding view。
Your Many nourished; starved my brilliant few;
Then flinging heels; as charioteers the reins;
Dive down the fumy AEtna of their brains。
Belated vessels on a rising sea;
They seem: they pass!
… But not Philosophy!
… Ay; be we faithful to ourselves: despise
Nought but the coward in us! That way lies
The wisdom making passage through our slough。
Am I not heard; my head to Earth shall bow;
Like her; shall wait to see; and seeing wait。
Philosophy is Life's one match for Fate。
That photosphere of our high fountain One;
Our spirit's Lord and Reason's fostering sun;
Philosophy; shall light us in the shade;
Warm in the frost; make Good our aim and aid。
Companioned by the sweetest; ay renewed;
Unconquerable; whose aim for aid is Good!
Advantage to the Many: that we name
God's voice; have there the surety in our aim。
This thought unto my sister do I owe;
And irony and satire off me throw。
They crack a childish whip; drive puny herds;
Where numbers crave their sustenance in words。
Now let the perils thicken: clearer seen;
Your Chieftain Mind mounts over them serene。
Who never yet of scattered lamps was born
To speed a world; a marching world to warn;
But sunward from the vivid Many springs;
Counts conquest but a step; and through disaster sings。
Fragments of the Iliad in English Hexameter Verse
Poem: The Invective Of Achilles
'Iliad; B。 I。 V。 149'
〃Heigh me! brazen of front; thou glutton for plunder; how can one;
Servant here to thy mandates; heed thee among our Achaians;
Either the mission hie on or stoutly do fight with the foemen?
I; not hither I fared on account of the spear…armed Trojans;
Pledged to the combat; they unto me have in nowise a harm done;
Never have they; of a truth; come lifting my horses or oxen;
Never in deep…soiled Phthia; the nurser of heroes; my harvests
Ravaged; they; for between us is numbered full many a darksome
Mountain; ay; therewith too the stretch of the windy sea…waters。
O hugely shameless! thee did we follow to hearten thee; justice
Pluck from the Dardans for him; Menelaos; thee too; thou dog…eyed!
Whereof little thy thought is; nought whatever thou reckest。
Worse; it is thou whose threat 'tis to ravish my prize from me;
portion
Won with much labour; the which my gift from the sons of Achaia。
Never; in sooth; have I known my prize equal thine when Achaians
Gave some flourishing populous Trojan town up to pillage。
Nay; sure; mine were the hands did most in the storm of the combat;
Yet when came peradventure share of the booty amongst us;
Bigger to thee went the prize; while I some small blessed thing
bore
Off to the ships; my share of reward for my toil in the bloodshed!
So now go I to Phthia; for better by much it beseems me
Homeward go with my beaked ships now; and I hold not in prospect;
I being outraged; thou mayst gather here plunder and wealth…store。〃
Poem: The Invective of Achilles … V。 225。
〃Bibber besotted; with scowl of a cur; having heart of a deer;
thou!
Never to join to thy warriors armed for the press of the conflict;
Never for ambush forth with the princeliest sons of Achaia
Dared thy soul; for to thee that thing would have looked as a
death…stroke。
Sooth; more easy it seems; down the lengthened array of Achaians;
Snatch at the prize of the one whose voice has been lifted against
thee。
Ravening king of the folk; for that thou hast thy rule over
abjects;
Else; son of Atreus; now were this outrage on me thy last one。
Nay; but I tell thee; and I do swear a big oath on it likewise:
Yea; by the sceptre here; and it surely bears branches and leaf…
buds
Never again; since first it was lopped from its trunk on the
mountains;
No more sprouting; for round it all clean has the sharp metal
clipped off
Leaves and the bark; ay; verify now do the sons of Achaia;
Guardian hands of the counsels of Zeus; pronouncing the judgement;
Hold it aloft; so now unto thee shall the oath have its portent;
Loud will the cry for Achilles burst from the sons of Achaia
Throughout the army; and thou chafe powerless; though in an
anguish;
How to give succour when vast crops down under man…slaying Hector
Tumble expiring; and thou deep in thee shalt tear at thy heart…
strings;
Rage…wrung; thou; that in nought thou didst honour the flower of
Achaians。〃
Poem: Marshalling Of The Achaians
'Iliad; B。 II V。 455'
Like as a terrible fire feeds fast on a forest enormous;
Up on a mountain height; and the blaze of it radiates round far;
So on the bright blest arms of the host in their march did the
splendour
Gleam wide round through the circle of air right up to the sky…
vault。
They; now; as when swarm thick in the air multitudinous winged
flocks;
Be it of geese or of cranes or the long…necked troops of the wild…
swans;
Off that Asian mead; by the flow of the waters of Kaistros;
Hither and yon fly they; and rejoicing in pride of their pinions;
Clamour; shaped to their ranks; and the mead all about them
resoundeth;
So those numerous tribes from their ships and their shelterings
poured forth
On that plain of Scamander; and horrible rumbled beneath them
Earth to the quick…paced feet of the men and the tramp of the
horse…hooves。
Stopped they then on the fair…flower'd field of Scamander; their
thousands
Many as leaves and the blossoms born of the flowerful season。
Even as countless hot…pressed flies in their multitudes traverse;
Clouds of them; under some herdsman's wonning; where then are the
milk…pails
Also; full of their milk; in the bountiful season of spring…time;
Even so thickly the long…haired sons of Achaia the plain held;
Prompt for the dash at the Trojan host; with the passion to crush
them。
Those; likewise; as the goatherds; eyeing their vast flocks of
goats; know
Easily one from the other when all get mixed o'er the pasture;
So did the chieftains rank them here there in their places for
onslaught;
Hard on the push of the fray; and among them King Agamemnon;
He; for his eyes and his head; as when Zeus glows glad in his
thunder;
He with the girdle of Ares; he with the breast of Poseidon。
Poem: Agamemnon In The Fight
'Iliad; B。 XI。 V。 148'
These; then; he left; and away where ranks were now clashing the
thickest;
Onward rushed; and with him rushed all of the bright…greaved
Achaians。
Foot then footmen slew; that were flying from direful compulsion;
Horse at the horsemen (up from off under them mounted the dust…
cloud;
Up off the plain; raised up cloud…thick by the thundering horse…
ho