我怎麼稱呼我們之間過去的一切？ How Can I Call What Is between Us a Past?

Following the convening of Hong Kong International Poetry Nights 2013, The World of Words is a collection of selected works by some of the most internationally acclaimed poets today. The poem of "How Can I Call What Is between Us a Past?" by Adonis (Syria) is finest contemporary poetry in trilingual or bilingual presentation.

阿多尼斯，原名阿里．艾哈邁德．賽義德．伊斯伯爾，1930年出生於敍利亞北部農村。他畢業於大馬士革大學哲學系，並在貝魯特聖約瑟大學獲文學博士。阿多尼斯迄今共創作了50多部著作，包括詩集、文學與文化評論、散文、譯著等。阿多尼斯不僅是當今阿拉伯世界最重要的詩人、思想家、文學理論家，也在世界詩壇享有盛譽。評論家認為，阿多尼斯對阿拉伯詩歌的影響，可以同龐德或艾略特對英語詩歌的影響相提並論。阿多尼斯對阿拉伯政治、社會與文化的深刻反思和激烈批判，也在阿拉伯文化界引發爭議，並產生廣泛影響。

阿多尼斯曾屢獲各種國際文學大獎，如匹茲堡國際詩歌論壇獎( 1971)、黎巴嫩國家詩歌獎( 1974)、布魯塞爾詩歌雙年展大獎( 1986)、法國讓．馬里奧外國文學獎(1991)、地中海獎(1994)、土耳其希克梅特文學獎( 1994)、意大利Lerici - Pea獎(2000)、阿聯酋阿維斯文化基金獎( 2004)、挪威比昂松獎( 2007)、中國中坤國際詩歌獎(2009)、德國歌德文學獎(2011) 等。1997年，法國政府授予阿多尼斯文學藝術騎士勳章。


Ali Ahmad Said Esber, known to readers as Adonis, was born in a rural village in Syria in 1930. He graduated with a degree in philosophy from the Damascus University and went on to earn a doctoral degree in Arabic literature from St. Joseph University in Beirut.Adonis has written more than fifty books of poetry, criticism, essays, and translation in his native Arabic. He is recognized as one of the most important poets and theorists of literature in the Arab world, and one of the most important contemporary poets and thinkers in any language or context. His influence on Arabic poetry can be compared with that of Pound or Eliot on poetry in English, combined, however, with a radical and secular critique of his society.

Adonis’s many awards include the International Poetry Forum Award (Pittsburgh, 1971), National Poetry Prize (Lebanon, 1974), Grand Prix des Biennales Internationales de la Poesie (Belgium, 1986), Prix de Poesie Jean Malrieu Etranger (France, 1991), Prix de la Mediterranee (France, 1994), Nazim Hikmet Prize (Turkey, 1994), Lerici-Pea Prize (Italy, 2000), Oweiss Cultural Prize (UAE, 2004), BjOrnson Prize (Norway, 2007), Zhong Kun International Poetry Prize (China, 2009), and Goethe Literature Prize (Germany, 2011). In 1997 the French government named him Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

1 你的眼睛和我之間 6

Between Your Eyes and Mine

2 七日 9

Seven Days

3我對你們說過 12

I Said unto You

4祖國 15

A Homeland

5詩之初 18

The Beginning of Poetry

6風的君王 21

King of the Winds

7致西西弗 25

To Sisyphus

8我想像我的愛情 28

I Imagine My Love

9我怎麼稱呼我們之間過去的一切？ 31

How Can I Call What Is between Us a Past？

10也許，大地上並沒有愛情 34

Maybe

11彈奏 37

Music

12詩篇 40

To the Poem

13紀念童年 45

Celebrating Childhood

14在意義叢林旅行的嚮導 63

Travel Guide to the Forest of Meaning

祖國

為那在憂愁的面具下乾枯的臉龐

我折腰；為我忘了為之灑落淚水的小徑

為那像雲彩一樣綠色地死去

臉上還張著風帆的父親

我折腰；為被出賣、

在禱告、在擦皮鞋的孩子

(在我的國家，我們都禱吿，都擦皮鞋)

為那塊我忍著饑饉

刻下「它是我眼皮下滾動的雨和閃電」的岩石

為我顛沛失落中把它的土揣在懷裏的家園

我折腰──

所有這一切，才是我的祖國，而不是大馬士革。

 

(薛慶國譯)

 

A Homeland

 

To faces which wither under the mask of melancholy,

I bow.

To roads on which I forgot my tears,

to a father who died as green as a cloud

with a sail upon his face,

I bow.

And to a child who is sold

in order to pray and polish shoes,

(in my country, we all pray and polish shoes),

and to rocks upon which I carved with my hunger

that they were lightning and rain

rolling under my eyelids,

and to a house whose soil I carried in my wanderings,

I bow.

All these are my homeland—

not Damascus

 

(Translated by Kamal Abu Deeb)