匈牙利詩人Csoóri Sándor的詩
年初到布達佩斯獨遊，特意到訪當地的一間英文書店Massolit Books & Café (IG @massolitbooksbudapest)，在其中偶爾發現了一位匈牙利詩人 Csoóri Sándor 的英譯詩集 (Csoóri 是姓， Sándor 是名。原來匈牙利文也是先寫姓後寫名，與中文名字相同。英語世界則通常叫 Sándor Csoóri）。在書店中讀了幾首，深感其意象頗堪玩味，於是雖不懂原文、亦明知詩不可譯，也還是買下。
Csoóri Sándor (1930 ~ 2013) 在匈牙利頗負盛名，作品反思史太林式政治的禍害，多次被禁止出版。到了60年代，他的詩越發趨向超現實，據稱是匈牙利 “Folk Surrealism” 派的代表人物之一。他不時以日常物品入詩，卻又對之賦予一層額外的氛圍或想像，有時極有電影感。他所寫的電影劇本 Tízer nap (“10,000 Days”) 由 Ferenc Kósa 導演， Kósa 憑該片贏得1968年康城電影節最佳導演。
他的詩已出版的英譯本分別有：Wings of Knives and Nails (1981), Memory of Snow (1983), Barbarian Prayer (1989), Selected Poems of Sándor Csoóri (1992), Before and After the Fall (2004)。我遇到的，是 Barbarian Prayer (不過是匈牙利的出版社Corvina 出版，可能與Forest Books 的版本有出入)。「蠻人之禱」，是不是已經很有興味？
以下選幾首英譯分享。我也不知譯得如何，但隔靴搔癢也嘗試欣賞一下：
THE STRANGER (trans. Kenneth McRobbie and Maria Körösy)
Somebody comes and knocks, seeking accommodation,
but can only grin robot-like at the door handle,
at the yellow-blossoming room-antennae.
If you don’t mind, I mumble, someone’s just died,
we want to spend the night in peace and quiet
and talk to him beside some bread, beside some wine,
be part of the forest sounds he used to hear.
Nodding, he’s still a stranger in the midst of loss,
though he, too, is born of Earth.
在守靈夜（？）陌生的旅客想借宿一宵。在屋內，親密關係從此天人永隔，守夜毋寧說是最後一程；在屋外，是在茫茫天地間萍水相逢的無名人。沒有義務幫忙。對方亦無強求。但他無限落魄，而我與他豈不是同一片土地上的淪落人？在古希臘，招待這種旅行者是宙斯確立的神聖責任；不知作者有沒有想到這點。
MEMORY OF SNOW (trans. William Jay Smith)
Winter sometimes changes its mind
and snow begins to fall
desperately, in thick flakes, as if winter
were afraid it might not last the night.
Best thing to do at such times is to disconnect the phone,
the doorbell, mull some wine on the stove,
pore over old letters,
and go back over your whole life also
as if it had never happened.
As if no gun barrel, no wanton eye had ever been fixed on you,
no ragged hand had reached out for yours,
and all that was politics, love, booming bells
awaited you again beyond an ocean.
Best thing to do at such times is to imagine
that you can still cry when you’ve lost your head,
and that the wind will blow lilac blooms
over beds with their torsos and rumpled pillows;
and that on Doomsday
you can stand in a light shirt, light jacket
beyond smoke, taverns, cemeteries,
staring down a country in grand decay,
your head filled with the memory of snow,
snow, snow falling like plaster silently peeling
from a cathedral wall.
此詩極有電影感。初段「冬季有時改變主意」，季節也在為其短暫的時光焦慮，總有某種觀照生滅的宇宙論意味。下文各種日常風物交織 — — 電話、門鈴、熱酒、舊信片 — — 卻在此景中沈思起「如果我此生並不曾發生」的形而上-存在主義式問題。舊信片尤其令人心裡安穩，但下文景色一轉，便是槍林彈雨、政治、愛、(戰地?) 鐘聲，甚至是「失去了頭顱仍能哭泣」；而風吹起的丁香飄過屍骨、飄過塌陷的枕頭。一生的畫面彷彿在橫掛的畫軸上開展，但細節卻又那麼親歷其境，而在詩中這卻是在想像中發生的虛構時間。詩後段直接面對審判日，我卻身穿薄履，在硝煙、旅舍、墓地之上，凝視著一整個國家的頹垣敗瓦，同時滿腦子只有對雪的記憶。是雪，雪，雪，落下如在教堂外牆上無聲剝落的石灰。雪的記憶，也是季節的記憶，甚至說是時間本身的記憶 (whatever that means)。開段說冬季深怕自己撐不過夜，或者記憶也撐不過夜，國家也撐不過夜，我的一生也撐不過夜。
I BELIEVED THEN (trans. Kenneth McRobbie and Mária Körösy)
There was nothing I ever wanted more
than that village-outskirts green evening again
- I on my belly in the May grass with you
dress slightly drawn up over your thighs,
and may-beetles flying over us unsuspectingly,
death-doomed guests of the universe;
and I believed then that the world would take me back again,
earth, trees, illusions surviving the winter,
that the world, tired of its losses, would take me back.
「對往昔的鄉愁」不是甚麼新的題材，但在 Csoóri Sándor 筆下，這卻關乎某種「人屬於世界」卻又「被世界流放」的焦慮……「而我當時相信世界會重新接納我/ 土地，樹木，那些熬過了冬季的幻影/ 世界，厭倦了失去，會接納我吧」。
SO IT SHOULD NOT BE DARK (trans. Len Roberts and László Vértes)
The bold bridges and the trees’
impersonal row on the concrete banks
can still be seen;
the afternoon’s falling snow on the faces of children running home
can still be seen.
But soot slowly covers the water
and the body’s night is falling too.
I think of those who may be destroyed,
who are not shielded by a dream.
Silence whistles into their room like a bullet,
and loneliness like the news of death.
I think of those who may be destroyed,
the Earth is full of them;
no armies protect them, no rose arbors, no scented shirts,
not money’s silver fences,
not love.
And in vain they die, for in vain they were born.
I think of those who may be destroyed,
only a hand would be needed, so they should have a homeland,
only another body, so it should not be dark.
此詩有一點在囚者的意味，應該要考證一下寫作背景。詩末：「只需要一隻手，他們便可以擁有一個故土/ 只需要另一個身軀，便可以不再晦暗。」……
作為詩集標題的《蠻人之禱》，下筆卻沒那麼直接，也一併分享：
BARBARIAN PRAYER (trans. Edwin Morgan)
Wrinkled, unrelaxing stone,
rock of mother-daylight, take
me back again into your womb.
Being born was the first error;
the world was what I wanted to be:
lion and tree-root in one,
loving animal and laughing snow,
consciousness of the wind, of heights
pouring their dark ink-blot down -
and here I am cloud-foundered man,
king of a solitary way,
being of a cindery star,
and what I join within myself
splits me at once, because it goes
quickly and only sharpens yearning…
Wrinkled, unrelaxing stone,
rock of mother-daylight, I
stand at the entrance to your womb.
如果有懂得匈牙利文的讀者，請多多指證。但無論如何，獨遊然後「遇見」詩人，也值得記住。近年不少人推廣「深度遊」；但我自己而言，卻喜歡在某個心靈的角落，慢慢追蹤起這些陌生人活過的痕跡。 “Nodding, he’s still a stranger in the midst of loss,/ though he, too, is born of Earth.”…
5月9.
