送交者: 方无隅 于 October 20, 2004 20:50:52:[新观察/xgc.merseine.nu]
回答: 这诗好吗？ 由 红药水 于 October 19, 2004 11:11:27:
跟那首唐诗还是不太一样。那首唐诗说的是离家已久，但家还在时的感觉，“怯”中还有希望，还有一种回家的感觉和期待。但这首英文诗表现的感觉，是那个家已经不在了，“怯”中已不带任何希望，所以最后诗人“象贼一样逃离”了那个曾经是她的家的房子。
我很难贴切，细致地说明读这首诗后的感觉。下面我贴一个英国作家对这首诗的感觉和理解。摘自他给我的email就我提的两个问题的答复。写得很美，值得一读。
It is amazing, isn't it, how a momentary feeling, like the one she had, can be converted into words and after all these years we two can read those symbols and glimpse that same feeling. It seems that despite historical, geographic and language differences humans must have very similar experiences.
My reading of the poem is influenced by my own feelings. Going back to an old familiar place and realising that in reality you cannot go back. That place you remember doesn't really exist anymore, except in your memory and in your heart. The special feelings you felt are not in a building, they are in you.
"And ask my business there."
In modern, informal idiom this might be written "And ask what I was doing there." Like if you wander into the lobby of a large office block and the security guard asks what you are doing there or what you want. (The word business does not refer to business in the sense of commercial activity or corporation but in a broader sense of interest, concern, purpose or function. Phrases such as "mind your own business" use the word in the same sense.) The connotation, though, is one of formality or unfriendliness. If someone actually said: "And what is your business here", they would be speaking in a formal and unfriendly way.
In the Emily Dickinson poem, these very overtones are present. When one returns to ones own home nobody asks what your business is there. In fact that is almost a definition of home. (If you hang about anywhere else for too long someone will ask what you are doing there.) She wants just to peep into the past, but dreads the hurt feeling she will have if someone makes her feel unwelcome and shatters that fantasy. They would "stare vacant[ly]" because they wouldnt recognize her: unlike when the place used to be her home and everybody did recognize her.
"My business, --just a life I left, / Was such still dwelling there?": I read this as though it was punctuated with another question mark:
"My business? Just a life I left..."
This is her imagined answer to the feared challenge "what are you doing here?" It is not a literal answer and it would seem strange to actually say it. It is a poetic, whimsical answer she is giving to herself.
"Just a life I left: was such still dwelling there?" She had a life in this place. Not just an existence but a life: with a younger self, friends, family, occasions, light, warmth, meals, talk, play etc. She grew older, moved away, had a new life somewhere else. She has returned geographically, and now imagines asking if her former self and former life are still there somehow. Of course she knows they are not. It just seems as though it might be. The old life exists in her memory, but somehow she senses that the precious feelings of childhood continue to exist somewhere, if only she could find them.
I dont think she was disappointed with her former life. I think she is remembering it with a feeling we call nostalgia: a mixed feeling of happiness, sadness and longing. I think this can be a very deep and precious feeling. A longing. Where can those lost feelings be found?
I hope this responds to your questions. If it is unclear, I will try to clarify my thoughts and feelings for you.