《無盡的玫瑰》1，1975 前言

古典作家提出了予詩人靈感的繆斯的浪漫主義觀念；而詩的古典觀念——詩作為智識的功能——則為一個浪漫主義者愛倫·坡在1846年左右提出。事實是矛盾的。除夢的靈感——比德（Bede）提到的牧羊人的夢，柯勒律治著名的夢——的獨(dú)例外，顯然，這兩種學(xué)說都有一部分是真實的，除非它們對應(yīng)于過程中特定的階段。（至于繆斯，我們必須閱讀希伯來人和彌爾頓稱作精神，而我們可憐的神話學(xué)稱作潛意識的那種東西。）在我本人這里，過程差不多是經(jīng)久不變的。我以對某種形式，某個遠(yuǎn)島的一瞥作為開始，后者最終將成為一個故事或一首詩。我看到終結(jié)，我看到開端，但之間并沒有什么。那是在星象或時機(jī)合適的時候啟示給我的東西。不止一次地，我不得不通過陰影而回溯我的腳步。我試圖盡可能少地干預(yù)作品的演進(jìn)。我不想它受我意見的扭曲，這些關(guān)于我們的意見是最沒有意義的。藝術(shù)是妥協(xié)的觀念是一種簡單化，因為沒有人完整地知道他正在干的是什么。作家可以在構(gòu)思寓言的同時，吉卜林承認(rèn)，卻不掌握寓言的寓意。他必須真誠對待自己的想象，卻不必對假設(shè)的“現(xiàn)實”的短暫境遇認(rèn)真。

文學(xué)從詩歌開始，花了數(shù)個世紀(jì)的時間，才實現(xiàn)了散文的可能性。四百年后，盎格魯-薩克森留下了一種不僅僅是偶爾受欽佩的詩歌和一種絕少清晰的散文。詞必須一開始就是一個充滿魔力的象征符號，而時間的盤剝則使它竭盡。詩人的使命，應(yīng)該是，至少以一種不完全的方式，把詞的原初的已是隱藏的力量還給詞。所有韻文都有兩項必須履行的義務(wù)：表達(dá)某個精確的時刻，以及像海的存在那樣從物理上碰觸我們。這里我有一個來自維吉爾的例子：

sunt lacrymae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt

眼淚因悲痛而產(chǎn)生，必死者觸動靈魂

一個來自梅雷迪思的例子：

直到火焰在爐蓖間熄滅
我們才能期盼群星聯(lián)姻

或者，這句出自盧貢內(nèi)斯的亞歷山大格式的詩行，其中西班牙語試圖重返拉?。?br>

El hombre numeroso de penas y de dias.2

這些韻文沿著它們在記憶中的改變的路徑移動。

在這么多——太多——年的文學(xué)實踐之后，我并沒有表達(dá)任何一種美學(xué)。為什么要在習(xí)慣強(qiáng)加給我們的自然的界限上加上那些這樣或那樣的理論呢？理論，就像某種政治或宗教性質(zhì)的信念，不過是刺激品而已。它們因人而異。惠特曼廢除韻律是對的；但這種否定在維克多·雨果那里就是愚蠢的。

暫且不提本書的證據(jù)，我注意到，那種災(zāi)難性的盲目扮演了一個悲哀的角色，它在我的生活中倒不曾如此。盲目是一種限制，但它也是一種解放，一種有益于創(chuàng)造的孤獨(dú)，一把鑰匙和一個代數(shù)。

——豪爾赫·路易·博爾赫斯
 布宜諾斯艾利斯，1975年6月

博爾赫斯公眾號編者注：

1、為了方便讀者檢索，本文來源按西班牙詩集的編排以及上海譯文出版社的新版本寫成《深沉的玫瑰》La rosa profunda，1975。

The Gold of the Tigers，1977

Translated by Alastair Reid，企鵝出版社

阿拉斯泰爾·里德Alastair Reid的英譯版詩集標(biāo)題取自西班牙詩集的最后一首The Unending Rose（原標(biāo)題為英文）因此王立秋老師翻譯的標(biāo)題是《無盡的玫瑰》。

2、蕓蕓眾生，飽經(jīng)憂患滄桑。（據(jù)王永年譯本）

Preface to The Unending Rose

Translated by Alastair Reid

The romantic notion of a Muse who inspires poets was advanced by classical writers; the classical idea of the poem as a function of the intelligence was put forward by a romantic, Poe, around  The fact is paradoxical. Apart from isolated cases of oneiric inspiration - the shepherd’s dream referred to by Bede, the famous dream of Coleridge - it is obvious that both doctrines are partially true, unless they correspond to distinct stages in the process. (For Muse, we must read what the Hebrews and Milton called Spirit, and what our own woeful mythology refers to as the Subconscious.) In my own case, the process is more or less unvarying. I begin with the glimpse of a form, a kind of remote island, which will eventually be a story or a poem. I see the end and I see the beginning, but not what is in between. That is gradually revealed to me, when the stars or chance are propitious. More than once, I have to retrace my steps by way of the shadows. I try to interfere as little as possible in the evolution of the work. I do not want it to be distorted by my opinions, which are the most trivial things about us. The notion of art as compromise is a simplification, for no one knows entirely what he is doing. A writer can conceive a fable, Kipling acknowledged, without grasping its moral. He must be true to his imagination, and not to the mere ephemeral circumstances of a supposed ‘reality’.

Literature starts out from poetry and can take centuries to arrive at the possibility of prose. After four hundred years, the Anglo-Saxons left behind a poetry which was not just occasionally admirable and a prose which was scarcely explicit. The word must have been in the beginning a magic symbol, which the usury of time wore out. The mission of the poet should be to restore to the word, at least in a partial way, its primitive and now secret force. All verse should have two obligations: to communicate a precise instance and to touch us physically, as the presence of the sea does. I have here an example from Virgil:

sunt lacrymae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt

One from Meredith:

Not till the fire is dying in the grate

Look we for any kinship with the stars

Or this alexandrine from Lugones, in which the Spanish is trying to return to the Latin:

El hombre numeroso de penas y de días.

Such verses move along their shifting path in the memory.

After so many - too many - years of practising literature, I do not profess any aesthetic. Why add to the natural limits which habit imposes on us those of some theory or other? Theories, like convictions of a political or religious nature, are nothing more than stimuli. They vary for every writer. Whitman was right to do away with rhyme; that negation would have been stupid in Victor Hugo’s case.

Going over the proofs of this book, I notice with some distaste that blindness plays a mournful role, which it does not play in my life. Blindness is a confinement, but it is also a liberation, a solitude propitious to invention, a key and an algebra.

J.L.B.

June,1975

譯者簡介：

王立秋，英語、法語譯者

王立秋豆瓣小站：site.douban.com/173214/

本文轉(zhuǎn)載自王立秋豆瓣日記2010年5月1日

題圖：博爾赫斯在德國，1969年8月

Via Ullstein Bild