作者：露易丝·格吕克 (Louise Glück)
翻译：夏小洵
第一个版本里，珀耳塞福涅 [1]
从母亲身边被掠走
大地的女神
惩罚了大地——这
符合我们所了解的人类行为，
人类能获得极大的满足感
从伤害中，尤其
无意识的伤害：
我们可以称之为
消极创造。
珀耳塞福涅最初的
冥界逗留一直被
学者翻找蛛丝马迹，争论
那个处女的感受：
她被强奸时是否配合，
或被灌迷药，被暴力侵犯，有违意愿，
就像现在这事现代女孩身上常发生。
众所周知，爱人的归来
并不能挽回
爱人的损失：珀耳塞福涅
回到家
带着红色果汁的污点，像
霍桑作品里的一个角色——
我不确定
是否该保留这个词：人间大地
是珀耳塞福涅的“家”吗？她是否在家里，想象的，
在神的床上？她是否
无处为家？她是否
天生的漂泊者，或者说
作为母亲的一个复制品而存在，更少
被因果观念所束缚？
你可以谁
都不喜欢，你知道。性格
不是人物。
是困局和冲突的多个方面。
正如灵魂被一分为三：
自我，超我，本我。
已知世界的三个层面，
一种示意图，用来分开
天堂，人间和冥界。
你必须问你自己：
哪里正在下雪？
健忘的白色，
亵渎的白色——
人间正在下雪；寒风说
珀耳塞福涅正在冥界做爱。
不像我们，她不知道
冬天是什么，只知道
是她导致了冬天。
她正躺在冥王哈迪斯的床上。
她脑海里想着什么？
她害怕么？是否她的思想中
有些东西
被玷污？
她肯定知道大地
是被母亲掌管的，这很
肯定。她也知道
她不能再称作女孩了。由于遭到
软禁，她相信
她已经成为一名囚犯，自从作为女儿开始。
等待她的可怕重聚
将一直占据着她的余生。
当赎罪的激情
成为慢性痼疾，残忍，你并非在选择
生活方式。 并非在生活；
你想去寻死也不被允许。
你漂泊在人间和冥界
它们看起来，最终，
奇怪的相似。
学者告诉我们
你没法知道你真正想要什么
当争夺你的外力
可能会杀死你。
健忘的白色，
安全的白色——
他们说
人类的灵魂有道缝隙
这种结构，并非为了让灵魂
完全属于生活。大地
要求我们拒绝这道缝隙，一种威胁
而非一种建议——
正如我们已经看到
有关珀耳塞福涅的传说
应该被解读为
母亲和情人之间的争执——
女儿仅仅是块肉。
面对死亡，她从来没见过
没有雏菊的草地。
突然，她不再
唱少女之歌。
有关母亲的
美丽和富饶之歌。缝隙
的地方也是断裂的地方。
大地之歌，
永恒生命的神话幻景之歌——
我的灵魂
在试图回归
大地的张力中支离破碎——
你会怎么做，
如果是你在原野遇到那个神？
[1] 珀耳塞福涅：希腊神话中主神宙斯和大地之神得墨忒耳的女儿，被冥王哈迪斯绑架到地狱，成为冥后。后来母亲经过太阳神阿波罗的协调，及宙斯的出面处理，终于找回她，但在哈得斯的设计下吃了四颗石榴籽，注定每年要回地狱四个月，因此人间才开始有了分明的春夏秋冬四季。
【英文诗原文】
Persephone the Wanderer
In the first version, Persephone
is taken from her mother
and the goddess of the earth
punishes the earth—this is
consistent with what we known of human behavior,
that human beings take profound satisfaction
in doing harm, particularly
unconscious harm:
we may call this
negative creation.
Persephone’s initial
sojourn in hell continues to be
pawed over by scholars who dispute
the sensations of the virgin:
did she cooperate in her rape,
or was she drugged, violated against her will,
as happens so often now to modern girls.
As is well known, the return of the beloved
does not correct
the loss of the beloved: Persephone
returns home
stained with red juice like
a character in Hawthorne—
I am not certain I will
keep this word: is earth
”home” to Persephone? Is she at home, conceivable,
in the bed of the god? Is she
at home nowhere? Is she
a born wanderer, in other words
an existential
replica of her own mother, less
hamstrung by ideas of causality?
You are allowed to like
no one, you know. The characters
are not people.
They are aspects of a dilemma or conflict.
Three parts: just as the soul is divided,
ego, superego, id. Likewise
the three levels of the known world,
a kind of diagram that separates
heaven from earth from hell.
You must ask yourself:
where is it snowing?
White of forgetfulness,
of desecration—
It is snowing on earth; the cold wind says
Persephone is having sex in hell.
Unlike the rest of us, she doesn’t know
what winter is, only that
she is what causes it.
She is lying in the bed of Hades.
What is in her mind?
Is she afraid? Has something
blotted out the idea
of mind?
She does know the earth
is run by mothers, this much
is certain. She also knows
she is not what is called
a girl any longer. Regarding
incarceration, she believes
she has been a prisoner since she has been a daughter.
The terrible reunions in store for her
will take up the rest of her life.
When the passion for expiation
is chronic, fierce, you do not choose
the way you live. You do not live;
you are not allowed to die.
You drift between earth and death
which seem, finally,
strangely alike. Scholars tell us
that there is no point in knowing what you want
when the forces contending over you
could kill you.
White of forgetfulness,
white of safety—
They say
there is a rift in the human soul
which was not constructed to belong
entirely to life. Earth
Asks us to deny this rift, a threat
disguised as suggestion—
As we have seen
in the tale of Persephone
which should be read
As an argument between the mother and the lover—
the daughter is just meat.
When death confronts her, she has never seen
the meadow without the daisies.
Suddenly she is no longer
singing her maidenly songs.
about her mother’s
beauty and fecundity. Where
the rift is, the break is.
Song of the earth,
song of the mystic vision of eternal life—
My soul
shattered with the strain
of trying to belong to earth—
What will you do,
when it is your turn in the field with the god?