"I must go in, for the fog is rising."
Emily Dickinson --The fog is rising.
【Emily Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886), Her last words were: "I must go in, for the fog is rising."】
Emily Dickinson也常採用，如：
Mine – by the right of White Election!
Mine – by the Royal Seal!
Mine – by the Sign in the Scarlet prison
Bars – cannot conceal!
【HC：我不知其意，或許有人願意說明。】
****
"我至少在三層意思上引用了卡
瓦爾康蒂描寫輕感的例子。首先是語言的輕鬆化；使意義通過
看上去似乎毫無重量的語言肌質表達出來，致使意義本身也具
有同樣淡化的濃度。諸位自己可以找到這類的例子。例如艾米
莉·狄根森（ Emily Dickinson）就可以提供許多：
一個花托，一片花瓣和一根刺針，
在一個普通的夏日的清晨——
長頸瓶上掛滿露珠一一兩隻蜜蜂——
一息微風——輕輕搖曳的樹林——
還有我，是一朵玫瑰！
***
作者是我？
出版－－不啻出賣心靈
02/22/2007
艾蜜莉的詩，多數隱晦難解，因為她往往將具象與抽象互易，推到極限，發揮得淋灕盡致。而且還常常特意偏離「正常」文法，使得我們一般非英語原生族原本就很難看懂的英詩，更形難上加難。
艾蜜莉寫了近1800首詩，可是終其一生卻出版了大約七首。下面這首詩可以一窺她對出版一事的看法。
Emily Dickinson
#709
Publication -- is the Auction
Of the Mind of Man --
Poverty -- be justifying
For so foul a thing
Possibly -- but We -- would rather
From Our Garret go
White -- Unto the White Creator --
Than invest -- Our Snow --
Thought belong to Him who gave it --
Then -- to Him Who bear
Its Corporeal illustration -- Sell
The Royal Air --
In the Parcel -- Be the Merchant
Of the Heavenly Grace --
But reduce no Human Spirit
To Disgrace of Price --
這一首詩，先不論其意象之豐，乍看又是一首文法上的難詩，不過透過重組成「白話散文」，似乎可以看出幾分端倪，也顯示起碼在這首詩中，艾蜜莉還是恪遵了文法規則的：
Publication is the auction of the mind of man,
poverty possibly be justifying for so foul a thing.
But we would rather go white from our garret
unto the white creator than invest our snow.
(May) Thought belong to Him who gave it,
then belong to Him who bear its corporeal illustration.
Sell the royal air in the parcel;
Be the merchant of the heavenly grace.
But reduce no human spirit to disgrace of price.
以下試就原詩譯成中文，韻腳就先不管了：
出版 -- 不啻拍賣
人的心靈所有 --
貧瘠 -- 因此或許
正合如此不堪
之事 -- 然而我們 -- 寧可
從我們的閣樓，迎向
雪白 -- 向那白色的造主
卻不出賣 -- 我們的雪花 --
讓思維歸於那賜下思維者 --
然後 -- 再歸於那具現
思維肉身形貌者 -- 去販售
那尊貴的氣息吧 --
整批包裝地賣 -- 去做買賣人吧
買賣那神聖的恩賜 --
但請不要，貶損人的靈性
蒙受標價污辱 --
小讀者注譯 H Bloom一段評說和Emily Dickinson 一首（並附瑞麟翻譯）
（我（hc）將小讀者主導的集合之）
「意識型態對於欣賞和理解反諷（irony）的能力是一大斲傷，意識形態膚淺的時候危害尤烈，因此我要提的第五個原則便是「重視反諷」。想想哈姆雷特無盡的反諷，他說的話幾乎都另有所指，甚至常與他的話截然相反。但是提到這項原則，我心裡頗感沮喪，因為現在已經不可能教人懂得反諷，正如不可能教他獨處一樣。然而，失去了反諷就是閱讀之死，也是泯滅了人性中被教化的部份。
我踩過一段又一段的甲板
小心緩步前進
星斗當空我感覺
海水中我的雙足。
我只知道下一步
便與死亡一寸之遙──
這讓我腳步蹣跚
有人說那是經驗。
I stepped from Plank to Plank
A Slow and cautious way
The Stars about my Head I felt
About my Feet the Sea.
I knew not but the next
Would be my final inch -
This gave me that precarious Gait
Some call Experience.
男女走路的方式有別，但除非是經過軍事操練，每個人的步態都不大一樣。狄金遜（Emily Dickinson）擅寫危顫不穩的壯麗，但是我們若對反諷無所感，便無法窺得其堂奧。她走在唯一能走的路上，走過「一段又一段的甲板」，說來諷刺，她的戒慎恐懼卻與豪放反叛並列，她覺得「星斗當空」，而雙足卻已浸在海水中。她不知道再走一步是否就「與死亡一寸之遙」，因而「腳步蹣跚」，她只說「有人」稱之為經驗。狄金遜讀過愛默生的散文〈經驗〉（Experience），這是一篇與蒙田（Montaigne）的〈論經驗〉（Of Experience）異曲同工的登峰之作，而她的反諷可說是回應了愛默生文章的開頭：「我們在哪裡找到了自己？在一連串我們並不知道極限何在、也不相信有極限的事物裡。」對狄金遜而言，極限就是不知道下一步是不是就到了底。「如果我們之中能有人知道自己在做什麼，或是在往何處去，甚至何時是在自以為是！」愛默生接下來的思緒在氣味上，或用狄金遜的話，在步態上，與她有所不同。在愛默生的經驗範疇裡，「萬物流動閃耀」，他那愉快的反諷不同狄金遜戒慎恐懼的反諷。但兩者都不是意識型態，而他們也仍然在其反諷的敵對力量中繼續存活著。」（郭強生譯）
---
小讀者 留言：
Plank: 甲板? 走在甲板上怎會在海水裡? === 橋板
I felt About my Feet the Sea: 我感覺"海水中"我的雙足? ===> 頂上掛星, 足下臨海, 但頭未沾星, 足亦未浸海. 除非是海上"浮木", 河中跨板, 或足可沾水.
precarious: 蹣跚? ===顫顫危危, 如臨深淵, 危哉殆哉...
感覺上很像走危危吊橋...
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小讀者 留言：
Women and men can walk differently, but unless we are regimented we all tend to walk somewhat individually. Dickinson, master of the precarious Sublime, can hardly be apprehended if we are dead to her ironies. She is walking the only path available, "from Plank to Plank," but her slow caution ironically juxtaposes with a titanism in which she feels "The Stars about my Head," though her feet very nearly are in the sea. Not knowing whether the next step will be her "final inch" gives her "that precarious Gait" she will not name, except to tell us that "some call it Experience . She had read Emerson''''s essay "Experience," a culmination much in the way "Of Experience" was for his master Montaigne, and her irony is an amiable response to Emerson''''s opening: "Where do we find ourselves? In a series of which we do not know the extremes, and believe that it has none." The extreme, for Dickinson, is the not knowing whether the next step is the final inch...
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but her slow caution ironically juxtaposes with a titanism in which she feels "The Stars about my Head," though her feet very nearly are in the sea.
Dickinson''s ironic juxtaposition of precarious and sublime:
- slow caution, the seas about my feet, uncertain/unknown last inch== precarious
極低極險 (one extreme of the series)
vs
- titanism, the stars about my head==> sublime
極高極崇 (the other extreme of the series)
就是在這向天抗爭的不確定經驗中, 狄金遜 (人類) 達到雖險卻崇的境地...
Titanism: The spirit of revolt against an established order; rebelliousness.
Spiritual Titanism: an extreme form of humanism in which human beings take on divine attributes and prerogatives.
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Emerson's "Experience":
WHERE do we find ourselves? In a series of which we do not know the extremes, and believe that it has none. We wake and find ourselves on a stair; there are stairs below us, which we seem to have ascended; there are stairs above us, many a one, which go upward and out of sight...
--
Montaigne's "OF EXPERIENCE"
There is no desire more natural than that of knowledge. We try all ways that can lead us to it; where reason is wanting, we therein employ
experience, which is a means much more weak and cheap; but truth is so great a thing that we ought not to disdain any mediation that will guide us to it. Reason has so many forms that we know not to which to take; experience has no fewer...
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男女步態往往有別, 但除非把我們編成隊伍, 嚴格統制, 走起路來人人多少各有其態。狄金遜, 這位最能掌握顫危而高崇境地的大師, 我們若對她筆下的反諷無所知感, 就完全不能體會她的意趣。她走在別無選擇的惟一路徑上, 「一條又一條跨板」地走去, 可是她這分遲疑小心, 卻又反諷地和一種與天地同大 (爭輝?) 的意識並置, 在其中她感到「星星就在我的頭際」, 雖然她的腳幾乎就要陷入海中。不知道下一步是否就是她的「末步」, 使她取得了「那種顫危不穩的步態」, 她卻不明言這種態勢, 只告訴我們「有人稱此為經驗」。她讀過愛默生的論「經驗」一文, 此文(問: 還是經驗?) 對愛默生來說, 乃是最高境界, 正如蒙田的「經驗談」之於蒙田, 這位他所崇效的前輩大師。而她的反諷, 則是一種聲氣相通的回應，答復了愛默生開篇之問：「我們在哪裡找見自己? 在一步步系列經歷之中──我們不知道這系列的兩極何在，也深信它根本沒有極處。」而極處, 對狄金遜來說，卻正是下一步或許就是末步的那種不可知狀。
****
I stepped from Plank to Plank
A Slow and cautious way
The Stars about my Head I felt
About my Feet the Sea.
赴黃泉
步履艱
海水濺
星斗懸
rl 留言（閒著也是閒著的rl）：
:
I knew not but the next
Would be my final inch -
This gave me that precarious Gait
Some call Experience.
悟失足
成千古
步踟躕
飽世故
Emily Dickinson died on May 15th 1886. Only 10 of her poems were published during her lifetime; hundreds more were discovered in a wooden chest after her death, and a legend grew up, sweet with pathos, of a woman too delicate for this world, disappointed in love.
http://econ.st/1d2Nifd
