我用什么才能留住你？
［阿］豪尔赫?路易斯?博尔赫斯
我给你贫穷的街道、绝望的日落、荒郊的月亮。
我给你一个久久地望着孤月的人的悲哀。
我给你我已死去的先辈，人们用大理石祭奠他们的幽灵，在布宜诺斯艾利斯边境阵亡的我父亲的父亲，两颗子弹射穿了他的胸膛，死的时候蓄着胡子，士兵们用牛皮裹起他的尸体；我母亲的祖父——时年二十四岁——在秘鲁率领三百名士兵冲锋，如今都成了消失的马背上的幽灵。
我给你我写的书中所能包含的力量，我生活中所能有的男子气概或幽默。
我给你一个从未有过信仰的人的忠诚。
我给你我设法保全的我自己的核心——不营字造句，不和梦想
交易，不被时间、欢乐和逆境触动的核心。
我给你早在你出生前多年的一个傍晚看到的一朵黄玫瑰的记忆。
我给你你对自己的理解，关于你自己的理论，你自己真实而惊人的消息。
我给你我的孤寂、我的黑暗、我心的饥渴；我试图用困惑、危险、失败来打动你。
What Can I Hold You With?
Jorges Luis Borges
I offer you lean streets, desperate sunsets, the moon of the
jagged suburbs.
I offer you the bitterness of a man who has looked long and long
at the lonely moon.
I offer you my ancestors, my dead men, the ghosts that living men
have honoured in marble: my father’ s father killed in the frontier
of Buenos Aires, two bullets through his lungs, bearded and dead,
wrapped by his soldiers in the hide of a cow; my mother’ s
grandfather—just twentyfour—heading a charge of three hundred men
in Perú, now ghosts on vanished horses.
I offer you whatever insight my books may hold. whatever
manliness or humour my life.
I offer you the loyalty of a man who has never been loyal.
I offer you that kernel of myself that I have saved, somehow—the
central heart that deals not in words, traffics not with dreams,
and is untouched by time, by joy, by adversities.
I offer you the memory of a yellow rose seen at sunset, years
before you were born.
I offer you explanations of yourself, theories about yourself,
authentic and surprising news of yourself.
I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my
heart;
I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with
defeat.
在我身上你或许会看见秋天
［英］威廉?莎士比亚
在我身上你或许会看见秋天，
当黄叶，或尽脱，或只三三两两
挂在瑟缩的枯枝上索索抖颤——
荒废的歌坛，那里百鸟曾合唱。
在我身上你或许会看见暮霭，
它在日落后向西方徐徐消退：
黑夜，死的化身，渐渐把它赶开，
严静的安息笼住纷纭的万类。
在我身上你或许会看见余烬，
它在青春的寒灰里奄奄一息，
在惨淡灵床上早晚总要断魂，
给那滋养过它的烈焰所销毁。
看见了这些，你的爱就会加强，
因为他转瞬要辞你溘然长往。
That Time of Year Thou Mayst In Me Behold
William Shakespeare
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’ d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’ st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’ s second self, that seals all up in rest.
In me thou see’ st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourish’ d by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
爱
［英］罗伊?克里夫特
我爱你，
不仅仅是因为你是谁，
还因为与你同在时我所是的人。
我爱你，
不仅仅因为你如何塑造自己，
还因为你如何塑造我。
我爱你，
因为你能激发
我的内在。
我爱你，
因为你的手能抚慰我荒凉的心房，
对我的傻气，我的脆弱，
你都给予无尽的包容。
而我心里美丽的所在，
其他人从来都没有费心
去我心深处挖掘，
却能被你昭然照亮。
我爱你，
因为你帮助去塑造我的人生，
我因而没有成为低俗的客栈，
而成为了一座圣洁的殿堂；
对于我日常的工作，
你没有丝毫责备，
而是唱着无尽的赞歌。
我爱你，
因为你为我所做的
远胜于其他任何力量，
你令我变得更好，
远胜于任何命运的奇迹所为，
你令我更加幸福，
无需身体的接触，
无需言辞的说明，
无需任何的暗示，
你就会去为了我而行，
也许这才是爱的终极真谛。
Love
Roy Croft
I love you
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.
I love you
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.
I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out.
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can’ t help
Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.
I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern
But a temple;
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.
I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good,
And more than any fate
Could have done
To make me happy.
You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.
Perhaps that is what
Being a friend means,
After all.
不是死亡，是爱情
［英］伊丽莎白?巴莱特?勃朗宁
我记得当年希腊的诗人曾经咏唱：
甜美的岁月，宝贵而充满期盼的时光；
每一首诗篇都如同一份礼物，
馈赠给所有凡人，无论老少。
当我执迷于他古老的词句，
透过朦胧的泪眼，我看到
甜蜜与伤心的岁月，忧郁与绝望的时光
充斥着我过往的生命，倏忽化作
一片阴影将我笼罩。我感到
泪流满面。神秘的暗影在我身后
拉着我的头发步步后退。
我挣扎，一个威严的声音问道：
“猜猜是谁抓住了你？”“死亡。”我回答。
但是一个银铃般的声音响起：“不是死亡，是爱情！”
Not Death, But Love
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I thought once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me. Straightway I was ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, —
“Guess now who holds thee?” — “Death.” I said. But, there
The silver answer rang, — “Not Death, but love.”
当你老了
［英］威廉?巴特勒?叶芝
当你老了，头发花白，睡意沉沉，
坐在炉边，疲倦而安然，取下这本书，
慢慢读起，追忆那当年温柔的眼神，
神色柔和，倒影深深。
多少人曾爱慕你青春妩媚的身影，
爱慕你美丽的容颜，出自假意或者真情，
而唯独一人爱你那朝圣者的心，
爱你日渐衰老的满面沧桑。
你弯下了腰，在炽热的炉边，
喃喃低语，浅浅忧伤中慨叹：
爱情如何逝去，
向山峦之巅独行，
将他的面容隐没在繁星之间。
When You Are Old
William Butler Yeats
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.