卞之琳译莎士比亚十四行诗7首
If thou survive my well-contented day,
When that churl death my bones with dust shall cover,
And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,
Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,
And though they be out-stripp't by every pen,
Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,
Exceeded by the height of happier men.
Oh then vouchsafe me but this loving thought,
"Had my friend's muse grown with this growing age,
A dearer birth than this his love had brought
To march in ranks of better equipage:
But since he died and poets better prove,
Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love."
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
But sad mortality o'er-sways their pow'r,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea
Whose action is no stronger then a flow'r?
O how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wrackful siege of batt'ring days
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong but time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall time's best jewel from time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,
Or who his spoil o'er beauty can forbid?
O none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
That time of year thou may'st in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd quires where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twi-light of such day
As after sun-set fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self that seals up all 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,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish't by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
Whil'st I alone did call upon thy aid,
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace,
But now my gracious numbers are decay'd,
And my sick muse doth give an other place.
I grant (sweet love) thy lovely argument
Deserves the travail of a worthier pen,
Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent,
He robs thee of and pays it thee again.
He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word
From thy behaviour; beauty doth he give
And found it in thy cheek; he can afford
No praise to thee but what in thee doth live.
Then thank him not for that which he doth say,
Since what he owes thee, thou thy self dost pay.
I grant thou wert not married to my muse
And therefore may'st without attaint o'er-look
The dedicated words which writers use
Of their fair subject, blessing every book.
Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,
Finding thy worth a limit past my praise,
And therefore art enforc'd to seek anew
Some fresher stamp of the time-bett'ring days,
And do so, love, yet when they have devis'd
What strained touches rhetoric can lend,
Thou truly fair wert truly sympathized,
In true plain words, by thy true telling friend;
And their gross painting might be better us'd
Where cheeks need blood: in thee it is abus'd.
To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still: three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,
Three beaut'ous springs to yellow autumn turn'd
In process of the seasons have I seen.
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd
Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green.
Ah yet doth beauty, like a dial hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv'd,
So your sweet hue, which me thinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived,
For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred,
Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.
When in the chronicle of wastèd time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights,
Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have express't
Ev'n such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophesies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring,
And for they look'd but with divining eyes,
They had not still enough your worth to sing:
For we which now behold these present days
Have eyes to wonder but lack tongues to praise.
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