我的海豚[1]，你只出人意料地引导我，

My Dolphin, you only guide me by surprise,

一个俘虏，就像拉辛，那善于构思的人，

a captive as Racine, the man of craft,

被淮德拉[2]无与伦比的缭绕声音

drawn through his maze of iron composition

引入他自己用钢铁构造的迷宫。

by the incomparable wandering voice of Phèdre.

我那时精神苦恼，身体给下沉的绳索中

When I was troubled in mind, you made for my body

刽子手打的结缠住，我的意志

caught in its hangman's-knot of sinking lines,

木然地打躬作揖，你向我游来....

the glassy bowing and scraping of my will. . . .

我曾坐下倾听太多

I have sat and listened to too many

合作的灵感的话语，

words of the collaborating muse,

过于自由地策划我的生活，

and plotted perhaps too freely with my life,

没有避免伤害他人，

not avoiding injury to others,

没有避免伤害自己──

not avoiding injury to myself—

向怜悯开口...这本书，属半小说类，

to ask compassion . . . this book, half fiction,

一张人造的用来与鳗鱼周旋的捕鳗网──

an eelnet made by man for the eel fighting

我的眼睛看到了我的手的所为。

my eyes have seen what my hand did.

译注：

[1]：洛厄尔曾说他的第三任妻子卡萝莱.布赖克伍德（Caroline Blackwood）救了他的命，所以称她为“海豚”。

[2]：法国古典剧作家拉辛的悲剧《淮德拉》（1677）中的女主角，洛厄尔曾翻译过此剧。