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 shone

As 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。

美术馆

余光中译

说到苦难，他们从未看错，

古代那些大师：他们深切体认

苦难在人世的地位；当苦难降临，

别人总是在进食或开窗或仅仅默然走过；

当长者正虔诚地、热烈地等，

等奇迹降临，总有孩子们

不特别期待它发生，正巧

在林边的池塘上溜冰：

大师们从不忘记

即使可怖的殉道也必须在一隅

独自进行，在杂乱的一隅

一任狗照常过狗的日子，酷吏的马匹

向一颗树干摩擦无辜的后臀。

例如布鲁果的《伊卡瑞斯》，众人

都悠然不顾那劫难，那农夫可能

听见了水波溅洒，呼救无望，

但是不当它是惨重的牺牲；阳光灿照，

不会不照见白净的双腿没入碧湛

的海波；那豪华优雅的海舟必然看见

一幕奇景，一童子自天而降，

却有路要赶，仍安详地向前航行。