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Jen & Eric | 06/12/07 | 隨想。Random Thinking | (290 Reads)

PictureFull Fathom Five by Jackson Pollock (1947)

因為讀到戀妮的幾段夢囈,令我想起這幾晚讀到的一些詩,隱約覺得可能對頭,於是探索一下,卻發現人的思緒在混亂間也有靈犀一點的時候。意念看似風馬牛不相及,其實只因中間千絲萬縷的關係給藏在冰山下而已。

戀妮談到冰島樂隊Sigur Ros時說:「看到寒風呼嘯而過,皮膚冷心腸熱,而川流不息的河海,是生之循環。嗅到山川雪嶺的氣質,土地的脈搏,晝夜的迷藏,還有金屬混合人性,誠實而若即若離的音樂。聽到不拘泥、沒所謂的生活傳統,瑰麗流動的風景,以及它賦予的一切想像。」

寒風、河海、山川、雪嶺、土地、晝夜--對,人類最早最原始的想像皆由她們而來。心念電轉間,想到這幾晚臨睡前讀過美國詩人Sylvia Plath的《Full Fathom Five》後,掩卷便睡,希望在夢裏尋得半點啟蒙,結果仍似有還無。

大學讀英國文學時,教授在課堂上把詩詞如拆大閘蟹般抽絲剝繭,把作者生平、詩詞創作背景、遣詞用字技巧等各方各面一一道明(還未計韻律、meter等分析),滿足了學生知性上對詩詞的追求,但對我來說總欠了一點點東西好讓我一頭栽進去。可能,剛升上大學的我還抱着一腦子化學方程式的計算態度上課,所以在云云文學體栽裏感到最一籌莫展的就是詩,愈怕就愈少接觸,愈少接觸就了解愈少,於是多年來只得好生羨慕懂讀詩的同學、朋友(如戀妮)。

近數年,開始懂得放下包袱,讀不懂就讀不懂,得到多少就是多少。漸漸放膽拿起詩集後仍誠惶誠恐、患得患失(天啊我在以為自己談戀愛嗎),但當我試着用生活經驗、個人感情加上潛意識來讀詩,原來也蠻有樂趣,甚至釋放了不少隱藏深處的感情,彌補了不少精神缺角。所以,現在讀詩時,我嘗試不被作者生平、時代背景等客觀條件影響,讓自己的意識空無一物地接觸詩句,最先浮現的思緒、念頭、意象與情感可能跟詩詞毫不相關,但卻是最個人,甚至可能是最真實的。有了這一層意思後,才去找詩詞的有關資料和分析。

Full Fathom Five by Sylvia Plath (1958)
 
Old man, you surface seldom.
Then you come in with the tide's coming
When seas wash cold, foam-

Capped: white hair, white beard, far-flung,
A dragnet, rising, falling, as waves
Crest and trough. Miles long

Extend the radial sheaves
Of your spread hair, in which wrinkling skeins
Knotted, caught, survives

The old myth of origins
Unimaginable. You float near
As kneeled ice-mountains

Of the north, to be steered clear
Of, not fathomed. All obscurity
Starts with a danger:

Your dangers are many. I
Cannot look much but your form suffers
Some strange injury

And seems to die: so vapors
Ravel to clearness on the dawn sea.
The muddy rumors

Of your burial move me
To half-believe: your reappearance
Proves rumors shallow,

For the archaic trenched lines
Of your grained face shed time in runnels:
Ages beat like rains

On the unbeaten channels
Of the ocean. Such sage humor and
Durance are whirlpools

To make away with the ground-
Work of the earth and the sky's ridgepole.
Waist down, you may wind

One labyrinthine tangle
To root deep among knuckles, shinbones,
Skulls. Inscrutable,

Below shoulders not once
Seen by any man who kept his head,
You defy questions;

You defy godhood.
I walk dry on your kingdom's border
Exiled to no good.

Your shelled bed I remember.
Father, this thick air is murderous.
I would breathe water. 
 

Full Fathom Five,字面解釋是「足五噚深」,一噚為六呎,三十呎有多深?作者真的想說三十呎深嗎?究竟所指的是何種深度?

Full Fathom Five在搜尋結果裏最先出現的是美國畫家Jackson Pollock的同名作品,看看資料,畫家卒於1956年,S.P.的詩作於1958年,會否出於懷念前人而作?藝術家啟發藝術家是常有的事,可能S.P.看到Pollock的畫作後有感而發:「the tide's coming when seas wash cold」、「as waves crest and trough」、「the old myth of origins」等全是海洋的意象;也可能一直活在死亡陰影下的S.P.對Pollock短促一生兼橫死下場有所「共鳴」?(S.P.曾兩度自殺不遂,最後於30歲開煤氣自殺身亡)

再看看文學界的「分析」,噢,原來我會錯意,《Full Fathom Five》是S.P.悼念亡父而寫的,她把父親比喻為高深莫測的海洋(甚至有說是海神Poseidon),既兇惡冰冷但她又禁不住想跟他共存共在(有指這層意思已顯露其尋死之心)......唔,很dark、很冷。

Full Fathom Five,還有其他層面的意思嗎?原來有的。莎翁的《The Tempest》裏就有一首這樣的詩:

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them - ding-dong, bell.

S.P.的詩作大概與此有關吧?究竟她的詩作是否只為悼念父親而作,後人也不能百分百肯定。一如所有藝術作品,就算是作者本身也未必能清楚解釋其本意與動機。

雖然我對這詩沒甚共鳴,(倒很喜歡「For the archaic trenched lines of your grained face shed time in runnels: ages beat like rains on the unbeaten channels of the ocean」,歲月能像雨點灑在滄海桑田上,然後川流不息,那是多麼壯觀﹗)但在尋找詩的意義過程裏,經歷了知性上的好奇與滿足,然後是一個誤會/會錯意,最後大團圓結局/一切回歸到原點上(S.P.、Pollock、Shakespeare都沒被打擾,擾動的只是我的思緒而已),就像看一場莎劇,在misunderstanding裏找到understanding,又像造了一場春夢。

(啊﹗我不是一無所獲,我會去找Sigur Ros來聽的,希望聽到「不拘泥、沒所謂的生活傳統,瑰麗流動的風景,以及它賦予的一切想像」。)


[4] Re: edithtse
edithtse :
Your 'displacement' is zero, but the 'distance' you've gone through is definitely an experience of indulgence.

That's what I think so too, and going back to the same place without having nothing is quite an intriguing experience.

Jen & Eric
[引用] | 作者 Jen & Eric | 07/12/07 | [舉報垃圾留言]

[3]

'但在尋找詩的意義過程裏,經歷了知性上的好奇與滿足,然後是一個誤會/會錯意,最後大團圓結局/一切回歸到原點上'

Your 'displacement' is zero, but the 'distance' you've gone through is definitely an experience of indulgence.


[引用] | 作者 edithtse | 07/12/07 | [舉報垃圾留言]

[2] Re: Saleisha
Saleisha :
Full Fathom Five是我唯一能大概明白詩境的一首英文詩(可能自大了點,呵呵),我喜歡讀詩特別是原著的東西.以往讀過一些英文詩覺得太深奧,因為一首詩後面一般反應一種當時的背景,它用的每個詞都是很講究的,也通常是深奧的.所以在了解一首詩的時候還得清楚它所寫的時代背景.但像Full Fathom Five這首詩中,它所用的詞句並不難,但給了我很多意境和想像.謝謝你讓我機會分享它.

嘩真羨慕你讀懂詩﹗不用謝我,謝Sylvia Plath吖﹗~


[引用] | 作者 Jen | 06/12/07 | [舉報垃圾留言]

[1]

Full Fathom Five是我唯一能大概明白詩境的一首英文詩(可能自大了點,呵呵),我喜歡讀詩特別是原著的東西.以往讀過一些英文詩覺得太深奧,因為一首詩後面一般反應一種當時的背景,它用的每個詞都是很講究的,也通常是深奧的.所以在了解一首詩的時候還得清楚它所寫的時代背景.但像Full Fathom Five這首詩中,它所用的詞句並不難,但給了我很多意境和想像.謝謝你讓我機會分享它.


[引用] | 作者 Saleisha | 06/12/07 | [舉報垃圾留言]