英文诗歌：战争

(2014-03-20 10:49:49)

标签： 一战      英诗

分类： 英文诗歌

今年是第一次世界大战百年纪念年。

英国电视剧 My Boy Jack 描写了一次世界大战时期英国作家吉卜林 (Kipling) 满怀爱国热情，想尽办法动用一切关系，甚至到英军总司令那儿去“走后门”，把因为高度近视而被军队两次拒绝的年仅17岁的儿子杰克【哈利波特真身】送上了战场。然而不久儿子便在路斯战役中失踪，最后被确认战亡。My Boy Jack 的最后的镜头，是Kipling 吟诵自己的诗“My Boy Jack"：

when do you think that he'll come back? ....
None this tide, nor any tide ....
Because he was the son you bore
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!
“他什么时候能回来...不是随着这阵波浪，也不是任何波浪...
因为他是你的儿子，就必须让他去经风雨，闯波浪！”


电视中很多年轻军官都是英国精英阶层的子弟，英国精英子弟一直有效忠国家的传统。一战英国有71.5万士兵阵亡，几乎消耗了英国整整一代的青年精英阶层。（对英国这一代青年人生经历最好的描述，是英国女作家Vera Brittain 感人至深的回忆录 Testament of Youth‘青春见证’。为纪念一战百年，BBC今年将把这部经典回忆录搬上影幕.)

一战涌现了很多伟大的文学作品, 是战争文学的顶峰。战争时期，自然少不了对爱国，为国捐躯这个古老的主题的探索。下面这两首名诗，表达了对这个主题的两个截然不同的看法。

The Soldier
By Rupert Brooke 【大帅哥，人称阿波罗下凡，27岁香消玉殒】

If I should die, think only this of me: That there’s some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England’s, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Rupert Chawner Brooke    3 August 1887 – 23 April 1915

这首诗反映了战争初期弥漫整个英文的几近帝国主义情绪的爱国热情。一战时，为国捐躯的士兵，会被葬在他们阵亡的国度。所以，Rupert Brooke 的诗说：假如他死去，埋葬他身躯的一小片异国的土地，将是‘永远的英格兰’。这是一个爱国主义名句。

【美国国家档案馆曾经展过一个文献，是肯尼迪总统没有机会演说的一份演讲稿：假如登月失败，美国宇航员回不来了，他会对美国人民说什么。演讲稿的最后一句话：‘For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.'直接套用了Rupert Brooke的名句。】




一战被称为是‘化学家’的战争，一战时期，化学武器被大规模使用。随着战争的持续，战争的残酷和非人性逐渐为人所知，战争从Glory 转变成一个‘War without glory’（Vera Brittain).

在西线战场上，德军向英军阵地施放大量氯气，英军1.5万中毒，其中约5000人死亡。下面Wilfred Owen的这首诗，描述一个因氯气中毒而死亡的士兵。这首诗是战争文学最有名的一首诗篇，出现在很多诗集和历史书中。是诗人 Wilfred Owen 24岁时写的， “Dulce Et Decorum Est"，拉丁文意为 It is sweet and right。

DULCE ET DECORUM EST
by Wilfred Owen 【在一战结束前一周阵亡，25岁】

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind. Gas!  Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, And floundering like a man in fire or lime  . . . Dim, through the misty panes  and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud  Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Edward Salter Owen        (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918)

诗人极尽笔墨，描述了他亲历的战场的恐怖。然后说：假如在令人窒息的梦魇里，你也能看到我所看到的一切，你就不会怀着高涨的热情，告诉充满激情向往光荣的孩子们，那个古老的谎言：为国捐躯，甜美而合宜。

百年来，诗人对战争的谴责，其震撼人心的力量从未减弱。作曲家 Benjamin Britten 的《战争安魂曲》里引用了 Owen 的九首诗。Benjamin Britten 在总谱里封上引用欧文的诗说：“我的主题是战争，以及战争的悲痛。诗人所能作的一切在于提出警告，以唤起世人的戒心。”





多年后，或许是表达对儿子的歉疚之情，吉卜林写下这样的诗句：

If any question why we died
Tell them,because our fathers lied.
（如果有人问我们因何而死，告诉他们，因为我们的父辈撒了谎。）。