As I Step Over A Puddle At The End Of Winter, I Think Of An Ancient Chinese Governor詹姆斯·赖特

冬末，我跨过水坑，想起中国古代的一位地方官张文武译

And how can I, born in evil days
And fresh from failure, ask a kindness of Fate?
-- Written A.D. 819

况吾时与命，
蹇舛不足恃。
——白居易《初入峡有感》
     作于819年

Po Chu-i, balding old politician,

白居易，你这开始秃顶的老政治家啊，

What's the use?

有什么用呢？

I think of you,

我想起了

Uneasily entering the gorges of the Yang-Tze,

不安地进入三峡的你，

When you were being towed up the rapids

为了那一官半职

Toward some political job or other

坐在被拉着逆流而上的船上，

In the city of Chungshou.

奔赴忠州城。

You made it, I guess,

我猜你到那儿的时候

By dark.

天已经黑了。

But it is 1960, it is almost spring again,

而现在是1960年，眼看又是春天了，

And the tall rocks of Minneapolis

明尼阿波利斯高高的岩石，

Build me my own black twilight

带来了我自己幽暗的黄昏，

Of bamboo ropes and waters.

竹索和水的黄昏。

Where is Yuan Chen, the friend you loved?

你的好友元稹在哪里？

Where is the sea, that once solved the whole loneliness

那曾经将整个中西部的孤独都带走了的

Of the Midwest?Where is Minneapolis? I can see nothing

大海在哪里？明尼阿波利斯在哪里？除了这棵

But the great terrible oak tree darkening with winter.

因为冬天的到来而变黑的可怕的橡树，我什么都看不见。

Did you find the city of isolated men beyond mountains?

你找到群山之外那座沦落人的城市了吗？

Or have you been holding the end of a frayed rope

抑或是，将一根已然磨损的绳子的一端

For a thousand years?

握了一千年？

译注

*最初发布时名为《詹姆斯·赖特眼中的白居易》