Philip Arthur Larkin (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) is an English poet, novelist, and jazz critic. He graduated from St John's College, Oxford. His works include The Whitsun Weddings (1964), High Windows (1974), etc. He was offered, but declined, the position of poet laureate in 1984. In 2008 The Times named him Britain's greatest post-war writer.

菲力普-拉金（1922 – 1985）英国诗人，小说家、爵士乐评论家。毕业于牛津大学圣约翰学院，著有诗集《降灵节婚礼》，《高窗》等。1984年曾被授予英国桂冠诗人称号，但是他谢绝了。2008年拉金被泰晤士报评为英国战后最伟大的诗人。

戴玨，毕业于伦敦经济学院和澳洲国立大学。其诗作及译诗曾发表于《创世纪诗杂志季刊》《乾坤诗刊》《诗选刊》等。现居于香港。

Edgar Dive studied at the London School of Economics and the Australian National University. His poems and translations appeared in a few literary journals, including Epoch Poetry Quarterly, Chien Kun Poetry Quarterly and Poetry Selected. He lives in Hong Kong.

Talking In Bed

在床上交谈

Talking in bed ought to be easiest,
Lying together there goes back so far,
An emblem of two people being honest.

Yet more and more time passes silently.
Outside, the wind's incomplete unrest
Builds and disperses clouds about the sky,

And dark towns heap up on the horizon.
None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why
At this unique distance from isolation

It becomes still more difficult to find
Words at once true and kind,
Or not untrue and not unkind.
			

在床上交谈应该最随意。
那样躺在一起可追溯到很久以前，
已是两个人坦诚相对的标记。

然而越来越多的时间沉默地度过。
外面，风未完成的动荡把云聚起
然后又吹散至天空各个角落，

而黑暗的城镇在地平线上堆簇。
都不管我们。没有迹象表明为什么
在与孤立保持的这个特别间距

想要找到某些词语变得更加
困难，既真实又体贴的话，
或既非不真实，亦非不体贴的话。
			

Wants

需要

Beyond all this, the wish to be alone:
However the sky grows dark with invitation-cards
However we follow the printed directions of sex
However the family is photographed under the flag-staff -
Beyond all this, the wish to be alone.

Beneath it all, the desire for oblivion runs:
Despite the artful tensions of the calendar,
The life insurance, the tabled fertility rites,
The costly aversion of the eyes away from death -
Beneath it all, the desire for oblivion runs.
			

除却这一切，想要独自一人的愿望：
然而天空满是邀请卡，渐渐黑了，
然而我们依循印刷出来的房事指南，
然而一家人在旗杆下照相—
除却这一切，想要独自一人的愿望。

这一切下面，让人淡忘的欲望流动：
不管日程表巧妙安排的紧张状态，
人寿保险，表格化的受精仪式，
眼睛对死亡代价高昂的回避—
这一切下面，让人淡忘的欲望流动。
			

The Explosion

爆炸

On the day of the explosion
Shadows pointed towards the pithead.
In the sun the slagheap slept.

Down the lane came men in pitboots
Coughing oath-edged talk and pipe-smoke,
Shouldering off the freshened silence.

One chased after rabbits; lost them;
Came back with a nest of lark’s eggs;
Showed them; lodged them in the grasses.

So they passed in beards and moleskins,
Fathers, brothers, nicknames, laughter,
Through the tall gates standing open.

At noon, there came a tremor; cows
Stopped chewing for a second; sun,
Scarfed as in a heat-haze, dimmed.

The dead go on before us, they
Are sitting in God’s house in comfort,
We shall see them face to face—

Plain as lettering in the chapels
It was said, and for a second
Wives saw men of the explosion

Larger than in life they managed—
Gold as on a coin, or walking
Somehow from the sun towards them,

One showing the eggs unbroken.
			

爆炸的那天
阴影指向矿井的入口。
阳光下矿渣堆在睡觉。

有人穿着矿井靴沿小路走下来
咳着带咒骂的话和烟斗的烟雾，
将焕然一新的寂静推挤开。

其中一位追兔子；不见了兔子；
带了一窝云雀蛋回来；
给人看；把它们放进草丛。

就那样他们留着胡子穿着粗棉衣裤，
父亲，兄弟，绰号，笑声，
走过高高的敞开直立的大门。

中午时分，有一阵颤动；母牛
的咀嚼停了片刻；太阳
像在热雾中披上了围巾，暗了下来。

死者在我们前面继续，他们
坐在上帝的房子里，舒适安逸，
我们会面对面与他们相会的—

据说就像小教堂里的刻字一样
清楚明了，而且有一刻
妻子看到爆炸中的男人

比他们在生活中所表现的要高大—
有如硬币上的金子，或不知怎的
自太阳那儿走向她们，

其中一位还给人看，蛋未受损。