冯冬，现居青岛，2011年从南京大学英语系获博士学位，致力于诗、哲学、精神分析的共通，译过多位美国诗人，包括司各特-琼斯诗集《别处》、《未来是一只灰色海鸥：西尔维娅-普拉斯诗全集》（上海译文出版社）。其对诗之本质陌异性的关注凝结成三本诗集：《平行舌头》、《沙漠泳者》、《残酷的乌鸦》（与孙冬合著，南京大学出版社）。原创作品刊于《诗天空》《美国诗歌评论》等海内外诗刊。

Peter Feng is a poet and translator from Qingdao, China. He received a PhD in English Literature from Nanjing University in 2011, and since then he has been exploring the interconnections between poetry, philosophy, and psychoanalysis. He has translated a number of American poets, including elsewhere by Scott Alexander Jones and The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath (Shanghai Translation Publishing House). He is the author of Parallel Tongues, The Desert Swimmer, and Cruel Raven (co-authored with Sun Dong, Nanjing University Press). His poems appear in Poetry Sky, American Poetry Review, Big Scream, Grey Sparrow, Napalm Health Spa, and others.

巴门尼德，雅典城门外

Parmenides, by the Gate of Athens

他会让你觉得他闭着眼睛或全然没有眼睛
            	——柏拉图《智者》


你永远驳不倒一个没有眼睛的人
他说他看见影子的闪光，着火的空气
他在同一与差异的悖论中追得你团团转
然后单脚站立于针尖，说运动不可分有静止 

你也驳不倒从非存在者出发的人 
他，到底是不是巴门尼德的弟子，他坐在
城邦入口，说这座城既不相似于影子
也不相似于实在，天色暗下来

他对这城说，你分有影子的种族与血统
阳光下的事物中，你为最短暂者
但路边的人不领会一个没有眼睛或闭着眼睛的人
只有一个小孩跑过来坐在他旁边

他问那小孩，你是少年苏格拉底还是老年柏拉图
或者你是他们两个，但假装成一个
我燃起影像的火光时，你们就晕头转向了
我打磨仿像的模具时，你们就惊呼我为技艺制作者
我以幻像之光示青年时，你们就指控我为迷惑青年的人

小孩一边点头一边摇头，若有所思
他接着说，我虽没有眼睛，却看到人之相，城邦之相
它们并非永恒制作出来的某个不变的东西，我
不仅看到这城毁于一场战争，我还看到城邦之相毁于一场战争

这个判断现在乃是虚假，下雨了，我预感
在我一切的教导中，你看见的仍是尚未存在的东西
既非整体也非部分地进入存在的东西
我死后几千年人们还争论，我们生活
在像的世界、真实世界、或二者居间的世界

他刚说完这话，大雨顿时磅礴，他拉着小孩
躲入墙沿，他的手颤抖，像一场地震发生于年幼的心灵
		

He will make believe to have his eyes shut, or to have none.
                              —Plato, Sophist

	  
You cannot argue with a philosopher of no eyes
who claims to have seen glittering shadows, air on fire 
who whips you around identity and difference and pirouettes
on the needle-head and cries, "neither has any share in either" 

Neither can you argue with him who starts from non-being
Is he a disciple of Parmenides? He sat
by the city gate. "This republic is not imagined 
yet not real," he said. It's getting darker

He pointed at the walls, "You came from shadows
among all things under the sun, you are the most transient"
The Athenians passed him by; they thought he had no eyes
Only a boy came to sit with him 

He asked the boy, "Are you young Socrates or old Plato?
Or both, feigning to be one
When I light the fire of images, they are agitated
When I polish shadows, they call me the magician of appearance
When I show them the fantastic light, they accuse me of corrupting youth"

The boy nodded, then shook his head, seeming to think 
The philosopher went on, "I have no eyes but see the ideas of man
and polis—they are neither eternal nor immutable. I also see
this polis destroyed in a war. The same with the idea of polis"

"This dictum is now false. It's raining
If you follow at my heels, you will see the unborn, the non-being 
coming into being, neither partially nor wholly
Thousands of years after my death, they are still arguing about
the imagined, real, and in-between worlds"

The rain hit the ground when he stopped. With trembling hands
he led the boy into a corner—an earthquake in a young heart