逝去的伊卡鲁斯

The Lament for Icarus[英国维多利亚时期的新古典唯美艺术家Herbert James Draper（1863-1920）]

画中是溺水死去的伊卡鲁斯，希腊神话中那个飞往太阳的少年。他被海妖安置在一块岩石上面，有着金色海藻般长发和洁白身体的塞壬们，围绕在伊卡鲁斯身边，她们是那么悲伤地注视着他那依然英俊的脸，连最喜欢的歌唱都忘记了。
第达罗斯(Daedalus)奉命到克里特岛（Crete）去为国王迈诺斯（Minos）建造神奇的迷宫囚禁凶猛的半牛半人怪物迈诺陶(Minotaur)。为了防止第达罗斯泄漏迷宫的秘密，迈诺斯把他和儿子伊卡鲁斯关在沿海的一座石堡中。不久，聪明的第达罗斯想到脱逃妙计。他们把剩饭留下来诱捕海鸥飞入高塔中，然后耐心收集鸥鸟的羽毛，同时还从蜡烛里收集蜡滴。第达罗斯以羽毛、线和蜡为自己和儿子各自黏制了一幅翅膀。然而如果飞得太高，腊就会融化了。得到自由的伊卡鲁斯忘掉了父亲的叮嘱，终于能够在空中自由飞翔的他情不自禁地越飞越高，向着太阳飞去。终于，炽烈的太阳融化了伊卡鲁斯的翅膀，他落入海中，死了。

Musee des Beaux Arts

by W. H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;

How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot

That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the

Torturer’s horse scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure;

The sun shoneAs it had to on the white legs disappearing into The green water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have Seen something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

美术馆

查良铮 译

关于苦难他们总是很清楚的，
这些古典画家：他们多么深知它在
人心中的地位，深知痛苦会产生，
当别人在吃，在开窗，或正作着无聊的散步的时候；

深知当老年人热烈地、虔敬地等候
神异的降生时，总会有些孩子
并不特别想要他出现，而却在
树林边沿的池塘上溜着冰。
他们从不忘记：

即使悲惨的殉道也终归会完结
在一个角落，乱糟糟的地方，
在那里狗继续过着狗的生涯，而迫害者的马
把无知的臀部在树上摩擦。

在勃鲁盖尔的《伊卡鲁斯》里，比如说；
一切是多么安闲地从那桩灾难转过脸：
农夫或许听到了堕水的声音和那绝望的呼喊，
但对于他，那不是了不得的失败；

太阳依旧照着白腿落进绿波里，
那华贵而精巧的船必曾看见
一件怪事，从天上掉下一个男孩，
但它有某地要去，仍静静地航行。

以上转自http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4bc6fb7101000avr.html