——E. Spenser
Of this worlds Theatre in which we stay,
My love like the Spectátor ydly sits
Beholding me that all the pageants' play,
Disguysing diversly my troubled wits.
Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits,
And mask in myrth lyke to a Comedy:
Soone after when my joy to sorrow flits,
I waile and make my woes a Tragedy.
Yet she, beholding me with constant eye,
Delights not in my merth nor rues' my smart:
But when I laugh she mocks, and when I cry
She laughes, and hardens evermore her hart.
What then can move her? if nor merth nor mone,
She is no woman, but a sencelesse stone.
斯賓塞[1]
我們所處的是一座人間戲院,
我的愛人閑坐著,就像那觀眾:
她看我將各種各樣角色扮演,
不斷換裝,以掩飾智慧的貧窮。
有時興致所致,我會喜氣融融,
就像喜劇演員戴著面具逗趣,
但不久我的歡顏變成了愁容,
悲嘆著,演繹起那人生的悲劇。
她看著我,目光始終那般超脫,
不因我喜而喜,不因我愁而愁:
我哭她笑,我笑時她報以奚落。
究竟什么能打動她?非喜非憂,
她不是女人,只是無情的石頭。
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[1]愛德蒙·斯賓塞(Edmund Spenser,約1552——1599),詩人。生于倫敦塔附近的東史密斯菲爾德,畢業(yè)于劍橋大學。著有《牧羊人日歷》、十四行詩集《小愛神》《婚曲》,最重要的作品是史詩《仙后》(原計劃寫12卷,結(jié)果只完成6卷)。由于他對詩歌技巧和韻律的把握勝人一籌,人稱“詩人的詩人”(a poet of poets)?!断珊蟆凡捎镁判畜w,押ababbcbcc韻。九行體在英國詩歌史上也被稱為“斯賓塞詩節(jié)”(Spenserian stanza)。