翻译[2006.9.07][Book & Art]For him the bell tolled

引用：
---

No man is an island,

entire of itself;

every man is a piece of the continent,

a part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less,

as well as if a promontory were,

as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were:

any man's death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind,

and, therefore,

never send to know for whom the bells tolls;

it tolls for thee.

没有人能自全，

没有人是孤岛，

每人都是大陆的一片，

要为本土应卯

那便是一块土地，

那便是一方海角，

那便是一座庄园，

不论是你的、还是朋友的，

一旦海水冲走，

欧洲就要变小。

任何人的死亡，

都是我的减少，

作为人类的一员，

我与生灵共老。

丧钟在为谁敲，

我本茫然不晓，

不为幽明永隔，

它正为你哀悼。
　　------John Donne ( 李敖译 )

--- John Donne

English poetry
英伦诗

For him the bell tolled
丧钟为他而鸣

Sep 7th 2006From The Economist print edition

THE thrill of discovering John Donne's deliriously inventive “Songs and Sonnets” is one of the great perks of turning up to English lessons at school. Those who wish to learn more about the life of the Renaissance poet have several biographies to choose from, including this new one by John Stubbs. Donne wrote “No man is an Island”, and Mr Stubbs carefully explains that we can understand him “not by treating him as an island, but by seeing his place on the volatile island he inhabited”.
感到John Donne疯狂创作的《韵文与十四行诗》所带来的震撼，是在学校上英语课时最精彩，最活跃的部分之一。那些希望对文艺复兴时期的诗人生活有深入了解的人，可以选几本自传来看看，其中就包括了John Stubbs的一本新作。Donne创作了“没有人是孤岛”，Stubbs先生细致地解释到，我们要这样理解Donne “不要把他看作孤岛，而把他生活的地方看作是定居在动荡不安的岛屿上”。

He was born in London in 1572. His father was a successful ironmonger. His mother was much grander, a descendant of the martyred Sir Thomas More, and he was raised a Roman Catholic at a time of fervent post-Reformation Protestantism. He went up to Oxford aged 12, which was not unusual at the time, especially for Catholic children. Later, as a law student at the Inns of Court, he earned a reputation as a poet, wit and ladies' man.
1572年Donne生于伦敦。他父亲是一个成功的五金商。母亲更显要，是烈士Thomas More的后裔。在轰轰烈烈的英国国教后改革时期，他成长为了罗马天主教徒。他12岁就去了牛津，这在那个时候可不寻常，特别是对于天主教的孩子们。其后，作为一个在伦敦四法学院的法律系学生，他赢得了一个诗人，创作智者和女人迷的名誉。

Donne may, as Mr Stubbs believes, have joined two naval expeditions, to Cadiz and the Azores. In 1598 he became secretary to the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, Sir Thomas Egerton. But his promising career at court hit the buffers when he secretly married his boss's niece, Ann. “John Donne, Ann Donne, undone” he is said to have written on the back of a door on their wedding day. And so they were.
Stubbs先生相信，Donne可能参加过两次海军远征队，到过加的斯和亚述儿群岛。1598年，他成为了国玺看护人Thomas Egerton爵士的秘书。但是，当他偷偷地和老板的侄女Ann结婚后，他那有前途的律师职业就触礁了。他说，在婚礼那天要把“John Donne，Ann Donne，未完成”写到门背后。结果他们真的是没有将婚姻进行到底。

His father-in-law failed to get the marriage declared illegal but found other ways to make the couple's life miserable. For nearly a decade Donne struggled to support his wife and their many children. The chapters dealing with these unhappy years are the most impressive in the book.
他的岳父没有成功的把这段婚姻定为非法婚姻，但是他却找到了别的方法让这对夫妇生活痛苦难耐。差不多十年里，Donne苦苦供养着他的妻子和他们的许多儿女。描写这一段艰苦岁月的章节，是这本书中最令人映像深刻的部分。

Donne was 43 when he agreed to be ordained in the Protestant church. He was awarded a doctorate in divinity by Cambridge and spent his last ten years as Dean of St Paul's. “For almost 60 years Donne had survived by altering,” Mr Stubbs sums up. “He had transformed himself from a closeted Catholic, as boy and youth, to a government secretary; from social outcast, after he married, to a pillar of the community, as a priest; from avant-garde poet, in his writing, to popular preacher.”
Donne43岁时同意英国国教教会的任命，在国教教堂中任职。他被剑桥授予了神学博士学位，并且在生命中的最后十年里担任圣保罗大教堂的教长。Stubbs 概括道：“近60年的岁月中，Donne命运多舛”。“他生命中的角色转换包括：从故步自封的天主教少年男孩，到一个政府官员；从婚后的社会遗弃者，到一个社区的核心牧师；从他写作当中的前卫诗人，到一个广受欢迎的传教士”。

The book's main points are uncontroversial: that Donne is best understood in the context of his time and place; that although he adapted to changing circumstances, he remained true to himself; and that he was always keenly aware of death. Consequently, Mr Stubbs does not offer a new Donne, but does offer a fairly thorough account of the one we know.
书中的主要论点都是无可争议的：在他那个时代和地方，Donne是被承认，被理解，被认同的；尽管他适应了千变万化的环境，他还是真实的自我；并且他总是对死亡敏感在意。因此，Stubbs先生没有将一个新的Donne呈现给读者，而是描绘出了一个我们都熟知的公正完整的Donne。

The trouble is that his biography seems to have been written with both a popular and a scholarly readership in mind. This gives rise to a couple of problems. One is the oddly mixed tone. There is a frequent crunching of gears as Mr Stubbs shifts between a conversational and a more highfalutin' register. A much bigger problem is his decision to shy away from sustained discussion of Donne's poetry as poetry. Poems are quoted and paraphrased but Mr Stubbs offers next to nothing in the way of analysis. Did his publisher think this would put off ordinary readers? If so, it is more than a missed trick. There is little in these 500-plus pages to remind readers of the astonishing vibrancy and strangeness of Donne's poetic imagination.
这本书的弊病在于，他的自传似乎要通吃通俗读者和学术读者。这样做会引起两个问题。其一，是古怪的大杂烩式的行文用词。Stubbs先生在交谈和更高傲的学术术语间过渡时，总会时不时的有不和谐的齿轮咬碎声。更严重的一个问题是他决定，避免把Donne的诗当作诗来持续讨论。这些诗被引用了，被解释了，但是接下来Stubbs先生却没有在诗的分析方面做一些什么。难道他的出版商认为这样就可以搪塞普通读者了吗？若是如此，这更像是一个失败的小把戏。在这500多页纸当中，基本上没有什么能唤醒读者汹涌澎湃的震撼，也没有能让读者感受到Donne的诗里那奇妙的想像力。