买了《反诗歌：帕拉诗集》，相对快速地读了一遍（有些“长诗”暂时跳过了），觉得应该再多了解一下帕拉，便去搜索一些评论，结果找到了两篇文章（《巴黎评论》网站）。目前翻译了其中之一，应该是一篇纪念文章，下面将中英对照分享给大家。 先说明下，文章中的诗歌译文（译注：《巴黎评论》中所引用的诗歌为英译）均引自《反诗歌：帕拉诗选》（江苏凤凰文艺出版社，2023年3月第一版）

ByDavid Unger January 29, 2018 IN MEMORIAM 大卫·昂格尔 2018年1月29日 纪念尼卡诺尔·帕拉

Nicanor Parra died last week atthe age ofa hundred three. Here, David Unger remembers a collaboration withParra that seemed doomed from the start. 尼卡诺尔·帕拉上星期去世了，享年103岁。文中，大卫·昂格尔回忆了与帕拉的一次合作，似乎一开始就注定了失败。

I first began translating the Chilean poet Nicanor Parra in 1973, on the recommendation of Frank MacShane, the professor of my graduate translation course at Columbia University. I boughtObra gruesa, an anthology of Parra’s poetry published by Chile’s Editorial Universitaria at the Las Americas bookstore in Union Square. Back then, there werefour Spanish-language bookstores on or around FourteenthStreet in Manhattan. Later, I picked upPoems and Anti-PoemsandEmergency Poems, two New Directions collections of Parra’s work. At the time, I was a serious silk-scarf/whiskey-breath poet, best buddies with classmate Frank Lima, a Rimbaud-like, jail-schooled poet.

1973年，在我在哥伦比亚大学的研究生翻译课教授弗兰克·麦克谢恩（Frank MacShane）的推荐下，我第一次开始翻译智利诗人尼卡诺尔·帕拉的作品。我在联合广场的“拉丁美洲书店”（Las Americas）买了一本由智利Editorial Universitaria出版公司出版的帕拉诗集《Obra gruesa》（译注：中文可能是“结构”的意思，不确定）。当时，曼哈顿第十四街附近有四家西班牙语书店。后来，我得到了《诗歌与反诗歌》（Poems and Anti-Poems）和《紧急诗歌》（Emergency Poems），这是“新方向”出版的两部帕拉诗集。当时，我是个严肃的戴丝巾/喝威士忌的诗人，和我的同学弗兰克·利马(Frank Lima)是“死党”，他是兰波式的、在监狱里受过教育的诗人（jail-schooled poet）。

I devoured these three Parra books, then went about looking for poems that had not been translated into English. I found “Últimobrindis,” a cynical mathematical poem that exemplified Parra’s antipoetry philosophy, and translated it as “The Final Toast.”

我如饥如渴地阅读了帕拉的三本书，然后开始寻找那些没有被翻译成英文的诗歌。我找到了“Último brindis”（《最后一次敬酒》），这是首愤世嫉俗的“数学诗”（Mathematical poetry），体现了帕拉的反诗歌哲学，并将其译为《最后一次敬酒》。

Like it or not We’re given only three choices: The past, the present and the future.

And not even three For the philosopher tells us The past has passed It’s ours only in memory: From the rose stripped of her petals Another petal can’t be drawn.

There are only two cards In the deck: The present and the future.

And not even two Because everyone knows That the present doesn’t exist But in the way it becomes the past And that’s passed… Like youth.

To make a long story short We’re being left only with the future: I make a toast For that day which never comes But is the only thing Really left in our control.

最后一次敬酒

我们不得不承认

生命中只有三个选择：

昨天、今天和明天。

或许不足三个

就如哲学家们所叹息的

昨日之日不可追

我们拥有的仅仅是昨日的记忆：

玫瑰被摘光了花瓣

长不出新的。

我们手里剩下的

只有两张牌：

今天和明天。

或许不足两张

今天不存在

是一种共识

今天的经历

之后也流逝在过去……

例如青春。

总而言之

我们只有明天：

为此我举杯庆祝

用不到来的那一天

因为它是我们唯一

真正拥有的。

（译文引自《反诗歌：帕拉诗集》，江苏凤凰文艺出版社，2023年3月第一版；下同）

After workshopping it in class, I sent my translation toThe Massachusetts Review, a journal I’d long admired. About a week later, I received a postcard from the editor, Jules Chametzky, saying that the poem had bowled over the editorial staff. Jules wanted to publish it on the back cover of their very next issue. Would I give them permission? Moreover, I would be paid fifteen smackers.

在课堂上讨论之后，我把我的译文寄给了《马萨诸塞评论》，这是一本我长期以来欣赏的杂志。大约一周之后，我收到了编辑朱尔斯·查密茨基（Jules Chametzky）的明信片，说这首诗让编辑部的人都非常满意。朱尔斯想把它发表在下一期杂志的封底上。我会给他们许可吗？还有，我会得到15美元稿酬。

Early success, at twenty-two, got my head spinning about the lures of translation.

早期的成功，二十二岁年纪，让我对翻译的诱惑“头晕眼花”。

*

In 1978, Jonathan Cohen, Jonathan Felstiner, and I translated fellow Chilean Enrique Lihn’sThe Dark Room and Other Poemsfor New Directions; in 1982, Lewis Hyde and I cotranslated the Nobelist Vicente Aleixandre’sWorld Alonefor Penmaen Press. When New Directions signed Parra to a new book, I was tapped to be the editor.

1978年，乔纳森·科恩（Jonathan Cohen）、乔纳森·费尔斯蒂纳（Jonathan Felstiner）和我为“新方向”出版社翻译了智利诗人恩里克·林恩的（Enrique Lihn）《暗室和其他诗歌》（The Dark Room and Other Poems）；1982年，刘易斯·海德（Lewis Hyde）和我为彭迈恩出版社共同翻译了诺贝尔奖得主文森特·阿莱克桑德雷（Vicente Aleixandre）的《独自一人的世界》（World Alone）。当“新方向”出版社与帕拉签约出版新书时，我被邀请担任编辑。

From the start, Parra was deeply unhappy. He had expected Allen Ginsberg, with whom he had recently read at the Americas Society, to edit him, though Ginsberg hardly spoke Spanish and wasn’t at all interested in the task. Moreover, I was an unknown Guatemalan American poet thirty-six years his junior.

从一开始，帕拉就深感不悦。他曾期望艾伦·金斯伯格（Allen Ginsberg）做他的编辑，他最近在美洲协会与艾伦·金斯伯格一起朗诵过，尽管金斯伯格几乎不会说西班牙语，且对这项任务丝毫不感兴趣。此外，我是个默默无闻的危地马拉裔美国诗人，比他小36岁。

I wish I could say that Nicanor and I worked hand and glove. I truly loved his poetry, its anarchic, humorously irreverent style, the lack of pomposity and literary flourish. Like a good poet, according to T. S. Eliot’s dictum, I stole rather than imitated him in my own verse. But as his English editor, Nicanor tolerated me, at best, like a recurring hacking cough. I was never able to surmount his disappointment that I was not Allen Ginsberg. At the time, Parra was living on 110thStreet in Manhattan with his artist daughter Catalina, and I was with my family on 113thStreet. Nicanor was a phone call or a short hop away. On the phone, he was always floaty and reticent; whenever I visited him in Catalina’s apartment to talk about my ideas for the book, he would meet me dressed in pajamas, his gray hair flying like straw every which way on his head. He was eternally unshaven and only wanted to talk about his translation ofHamlet, especially the famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy.

我真希望我能说，尼卡诺尔与我密切合作。我真的很喜欢他的诗，它的无政府主义、幽默无礼的风格，没有浮夸和文学上的华丽。正如T.S.艾略特的名言，我就像一个好诗人，在自己的诗中抄袭他而不是模仿他。但作为他的英文编辑，尼卡诺尔对我的容忍至多就像反复发作的咳嗽。我一直未能克服他对我不是艾伦·金斯伯格的失望。当时，帕拉和他的艺术家女儿卡特琳娜住在曼哈顿110街，而我和家人住在113街。尼卡诺尔打个电话或走两步就到了。在电话里，他总是飘忽不定、沉默寡言；每当我去卡特琳娜的公寓拜访他，谈论我对这本书的想法时，他都会穿着睡衣来见我，灰白的头发像稻草一样在他头上飞舞。他永远不刮胡子，只想谈他翻译的《哈姆雷特》，特别是那段著名的“生存还是毁灭”的独白。

（译注：此处未译；英译版通常为：生存还是毁灭，这是一个值得考虑的问题）

Two of these visits made me realize his slovenly dress was donea propósito—on purpose, a way to show his disdain without actually being rude. He was forever the trickster and reliably unconventional, but always with a motive. No wonder his poetry made readers feel they were being shot by a revolver point-blank in the face: the loud popping sound, followed by a white flag of surrender slinking comically out of the muzzle.

其中两次拜访让我意识到，他的邋遢是有意为之——是显示他不屑一顾的一种方式，而非真的粗鲁。他永远诡计多端，可靠地不因循守旧，但总是怀有动机。难怪他的诗让读者觉得自己被左轮手枪近距离射中了脸：砰的一声巨响，接着一面投降的白旗滑稽地从枪口中伸了出来。

As editor, I wanted to honor his previous translators by including much of their previously published material. Nonetheless, I wanted revisions where I felt the translators had strayed, been inaccurate or wordy. For example, in their translation of “TheIndividual’s Soliloquy,” Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti had left out two lines of the Spanish. I made multiple suggestions to Miller Williams and W. S. Merwin for alternate readings of some passages; Williams accepted them all, and Merwin and I shadowboxed a bit before reaching a compromise. Denise Levertov absolutely refused to give me permission to republish her translation, in protest of Parra shaking Pat Nixon’s hand at the White House during the Vietnam War and of his unwillingness to save his imprisoned nephew Angel, son of the singer-composer Violeta Parra, after Pinochet’s coup in Chile. Her letter was venomous.

作为编辑，我想尊重他以前的译者，包括他们以前出版的许多材料。尽管如此，我还是希望对我认为译者偏离方向、不准确或词不达意的地方进行修改。例如，在他们翻译的《个人独白》中，金斯伯格和费林盖蒂漏掉了两行西班牙语。我向米勒·威廉斯和W.S.默温提出了一些段落的替代性阅读建议；威廉斯全盘接受了，默温和我在达成妥协之前进行了一番“隔空较量”。丹妮斯·莱维托夫（Denise Levertov）绝对拒绝允许我重新出版她的译本，以抗议帕拉在越战期间在白宫与帕特·尼克松（译注：美国第37任总统尼克松的妻子）握手，以及他不愿在智利皮诺切特政变后拯救他被监禁的侄子安吉尔（创作型歌手维奥莱塔·帕拉Violeta Parra的儿子）。她的信言辞恶毒。

*

As I went about preparing my manuscript, Parra canceled meetings and refused to answer queries, which I sent by mail across the three blocks that separated us. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when I assigned “The Man He Imagined,” a wonderful lyric poem about a lonely, heartbroken man who lives in a mansion, to Edith Grossman, a translator just hitting her stride and the author ofThe Antipoetry of Nicanor Parra. Behind my back, Nicanor had sent this same poem to at least four other translators. I asked him why he had done that. He said translation should be a horse race and he should be able to pick the winner. He was very confident in his English, which I found poor, and the arrogance of this answer kind of stuck in my craw.

当我准备我的手稿时，帕拉取消了会面，并拒绝回答我的疑问，我隔着三个街区把信寄给他。压垮骆驼的那根稻草是当我把《想象中的男人》这首美妙的抒情诗分配给伊迪丝·格罗斯曼（Edith Grossman）时，她是位刚刚崭露头角的译者，也是《尼卡诺尔·帕拉的反诗歌》的作者。在我背后，尼卡诺尔至少把这首诗交给了另外四位译者。我问他为什么这样做。他说，翻译应该是一场赛马，他应该可以挑选出赢家。他对自己的英语非常自信，而我觉得他的英语很糟，这个傲慢的回答让我很难受。

I told Nicanor that I had to meet him at once to discuss my role as editor. This meeting took place at the Hungarian Pastry Shop across from St. John the Divine near Columbia University. I don’t recall what he wore, but I’m sure he dressed for the occasion, expecting me to throw in the towel.

我告诉尼卡诺尔，我必须马上跟他见面，讨论我作为编辑的地位。这次会面是在哥伦比亚大学附近的圣约翰神学院对面的匈牙利糕饼店进行的。我不记得他穿了什么，但我肯定他穿得很得体，期待我放弃、认输。

Heart pounding, I told him that as editor, I could not tolerate this kind of subterfuge. Translation is a painstaking art, and I couldn’t have celebrated translators, friends of mine, competing with each other like horses. Nicanor just sat there and listened without drinking his tea. From time to time, he pursed his lips and looked blank, ignoring my eyes and glancing at the nearby coeds. Without saying another word, he suddenly got up and left. He flew back to Chile perhaps a week later. He refused to answer any of my calls or letters. I suspected that few people had ever stood up to him before—his silence was his way of underscoring my unimportance and his authority. After all, Nicanor was an alpha male.

我的心怦怦直跳，我告诉他，作为编辑，我不能容忍这种“诡计”。翻译是门艰苦的手艺，我不能让那些声誉卓著的译者，我的朋友们，像马一样互相竞争。尼卡诺尔只是坐在那儿听着，没喝茶。他时不时抿着嘴，一脸茫然，无视我的目光，而是瞥着旁边的女学生。二话没说，他突然站起来走了。大约一周后，他飞回了智利。他拒绝接听我的电话，拒绝回复我的信件。我怀疑以前很少有人反对过他——他的沉默是他强调我的微不足道和他的权威的方式。毕竟，尼卡诺尔是“大佬”。

*

It isn’t easy for me to feel sad To be honest Even skulls make me laugh. The poet asleep on the cross Greets you with tears of blood.

—from “Letters from a Poet Who Sleeps in a Chair”

我不同意难过

说实话

连骷髅都让我发笑。

在十字架上睡觉的诗人

带血的眼泪向你们致敬。

——摘自《睡在椅子上的诗人的来信》

*

I continued working on my manuscript, revising old translations, commissioning others. I submittedAntipoems: New and Selectedto my editor Frederick Martin, who sent it on to Parra for his final revisions. Parra was an inveterate tinkerer; it was difficult for him to send a poem or his translation ofHamleton its way. He never answered Martin, or any of his Chilean interlocutors, even when told that the book would go to press without his final edits if he didn’t respond by a certain date.

我继续忙于我的手稿，修改以前的译文，委托他人翻译。我把《反诗歌：新诗与诗选》交给了我的编辑弗雷德里克·马丁（Frederick Martin），他把它送给了帕拉做最后的修改。帕拉是个不折不扣的修补匠；对他来说，把一首诗或他翻译的《哈姆雷特》寄出去很困难。他从来没有回复过马丁，也没有回复过任何与他对话的智利人，即使有人告诉他，如果在某个日期前没得到回复，这本书将在没有他最后编辑的情况下出版。

The book was published in 1985 with a wonderful introduction by Frank MacShane. I heard from several Chilean friends that Nicanor hated the book because I had published translations he was still working to perfect. The coup de grâce, however, was the New Directions cover, which he hadn’t authorized; he said, with great disdain, that Layle Silbert’s photo made him look like a monkey.

该书于1985年出版，由弗兰克·麦克沙恩（Frank MacShane）作了精彩的介绍。我从几个智利朋友那里听说，尼卡诺尔讨厌这本书，因为我出版了他还在努力完善的译文。然而，“致命一击”是“新方向”的封面，他没授权；他带着极大的轻蔑说，莱尔·希尔伯特（Layle Silbert）的照片让他看起来像只猴子。

I can only accept beauty Ugliness is something I find painful

—from “Letters from a Poet Who Sleeps in a Chair”

只有美能让我满足

丑使我受伤

——摘自《睡在椅子上的诗人的来信》

For the next twenty years, Parra never mentioned the book I had edited. Whenever he submitted his bio for prizes, readings, and publications, it was as if it never existed.

在接下来的二十年里，帕拉从未提及过我编辑的那本书。每当他为获奖、朗诵和出版提交他的简历时，就像它从未存在过一样。

*

Parra and I didn’t communicate again for six years. In 1991, he was awarded the first Juan Rulfo Prize by the Guadalajara International Book Fair in early September. It was a huge honor, and worth a hundred thousand dollars. I was covering the fair forPublishers Weeklyand got New Directions to send twenty-five copies of my bilingualAntipoemsto sell in Guadalajara. Two days before the prize was bestowed upon him, I ran into Nicanor in the aisles of the fair. Curiously enough, he embraced me happily and said, “Qué hay de tu vida?,” a common Chilean greeting. I mumbled something incoherent, I’m sure.

帕拉和我有六年没有联系了。1991年9月初，他在瓜达拉哈拉国际书展上获得了第一届胡安·鲁尔福奖（Juan Rulfo Prize）。这是一个巨大的荣誉，价值十万美金。我当时正在为《出版人周刊》报道书展，并让“新方向”出版社送来25本我的双语《反诗歌》在瓜达拉哈拉书展上销售。在他获奖的前两天，我在书展过道上碰到了尼卡诺尔。奇怪的是，他高兴地拥抱了我，说：“你过得好吗？”（Qué hay de tu vida）这是智利人常用的问候语。我敢肯定，我当时含糊不清地说了什么。

Was I simply a familiar face to Nicanor, or had he forgiven me?

对尼卡诺尔来说，我只是一张熟悉的脸，还是他已经原谅我了？

I congratulated him, and he clapped my back several times. Then he said that he thought that his daughter Catalina would want to be there with him for the ceremony two days away. Would I call her in New York and see if she wanted to fly down? “Tell her that I’ll pay for her ticket,” he said cavalierly.

我向他表示祝贺，他拍了几下我的后背。然后他说，他觉得他的女儿卡特琳娜会想和他一起参加两天后的仪式。我要不要打电话给纽约的她，看她是否愿意飞过来？“告诉她我会付机票钱的”，他轻描淡写地说。

I thought this request odd, since he had known about the award for over two months, but the request illustrated his restrained narcissism. I truly wanted to make amends, but I didn’t want to do his bidding for him. In the end, I brought him to the press office, where he could use one of the phones to call her for free.

我觉得这个要求很奇怪，因为他知道这个奖已经两个多月了，但这个要求说明了他克制的自恋。我真想做出补偿，但我不想替他做主。最后，我把他带到了新闻处，在那儿他可以用一部电话免费打给她。

I’m pretty sure Catalina didn’t come (at least, I didn’t see her). Though Nicanor and I continued to have many friends in common—the Chilean novelists Carlos Franz and Arturo Fontaine, the translator Edith Grossman—we never again crossed paths. This was unfortunate because I truly loved many of his poems and felt that along with his fellow Chilean poets Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral, he was a true trailblazer.

我很确定卡特琳娜没来（至少我没见到）。尽管尼卡诺尔和我继续有许多共同的朋友——智利小说家卡洛斯·弗朗茨（Carlos Franz）和阿图罗·方丹（Arturo Fontaine），译者伊迪丝·格罗斯曼——但我们再也没有交集。这很不幸，因为我真的很喜欢他的许多诗，觉得他和他的智利同胞诗人巴勃罗·聂鲁达和加芙列拉·米斯特拉尔（Gabriela Mistral）一样，是真正的开拓者。 * Sure—rest in peace

but what about the damp? and the moss? and the weight of the tombstone? and the drunken gravediggers? and the people who steal the flowerpots? and the rats gnawing at the coffins? and the damned worms crawling in everywhere they make death impossible for us or do you really think we don’t know what’s going on…

—from “Rest in Peace,” translated by Edith Grossman

——摘自《安息吧》，伊迪丝·格罗斯曼英译

是啊——安息吧

潮湿怎么办？

有苔藓怎么办呢？

墓碑很重怎么办？

拿那些喝醉酒的掘墓人怎么办？

有贼怎么办？

有啃棺材的老鼠怎么办？

该死的到处窜的

蠕虫怎么办？

它们使我们死了也不得安宁

难道你们以为

我们失去了知觉吗……

Oddly, as time passed, I noticed that Nicanor began putting the book that I had edited into his biography and bibliography. Maybe, just maybe,I thought. Or … better never mind.

奇怪的是，随着时间的推移，我注意到尼卡诺尔开始把我编辑的书放进他的传记和出版书目中。也许，只是也许，我想。或者……最好别在意。

Nicanor was a great poet because he didn’t mince words. As he writes:

尼卡诺尔是个伟大的诗人，因为他直言不讳，从不拐弯抹角。正如他所写：

For half a century Poetry was the paradise Of the solemn fool. Until I came along And built my rollercoaster.

Go up, if you feel like it. It’s not my fault if you come down Bleeding from your nose and mouth.

—from “Roller Coaster,”translated by Miller Williams

——《过山车》，米勒·威廉斯（英）译

半个世纪以来

诗歌一直是

那些庄重傻子们的天堂。

直到我和我的

过山车出现。

你们如果愿意，就坐上来吧。

当然，要是你们下车后七窍喷血

本人概不负责。

David Unger’s latest novel isThe Mastermind. His other books includeNi chicha, ni limonada;The Price of Escape;Para Mí, Eres Divina;andLife in the Damn Tropics. His writing has appeared inPuertos Abiertos,Guernica,andPlayboy Mexico. He has translatedfourteenbooks, includingthePopol Vuh—Guatemala’s pre-Columbian creation myth—and the work of Rigoberta Menchú, Silvia Molina, Nicanor Parra, Teresa Cárdenas, and Mario Benedetti, among others.

大卫·昂格尔（David Unger）的最新小说是《策划者》（The Mastermind）。他的其他书包括：《不伦不类》（Ni chicha, ni limonada）；《逃避的代价》（The Price of Escape）；《对我而言，你是神圣的》（Para Mí, Eres Divina）；和《该死的热带生活》（Life in the Damn Tropics）。他的作品曾发表于《通商口岸》（Puertos Abiertos）、《格尔尼卡》（Guernica）和《花花公子》（墨西哥版）。他翻译过14本书，包括《波波尔·乌》（Popol Vuh）——危地马拉前哥伦布时期的创世神话——以及里里戈韦塔·门楚、西尔维娅·莫利纳、尼卡诺尔·帕拉、特雷莎·卡德纳斯和马里奥·贝内德蒂等人的作品。