At the Time of Peony Blossoming
Robert Bly
When I come near the red peony flower
I tremble as water does near thunder,
as the well does when the plates of earth move,
or the tree when fifty birds leave at once.
The peony says that we have been given a gift,
and it is not the gift of this world.
Behind the leaves of the peony
there is a world still darker, that feed many.
牡丹盛开的时节
罗伯特·勃莱
当我走近那艳红的牡丹花
我颤抖，有如湖水因雷霆而颤动，
犹如地球板块移动时的深井，
又如五十只鸟儿同时飞离后的树冠。
牡丹花说我们被赐予一份礼物，
并不是这个俗世的馈赠。
牡丹花的叶子背后还有一个世界，
更加阴暗，为很多人提供养分。
中英对白
Robert Bly
“Love poems seem to ask for every bit of musicianship we have, because they
can so easily go out of tune. If the poem veers too far toward actual events,
the eternal feeling is lost in the static of our inadequacies; if we confine
the poem only to what we feel, the other person disappears.”
from Loving a Woman in Two Worlds (985)
“爱情诗似乎要求我们发挥我们拥有的每一丝音乐家禀赋，因为它们实在太容易跑调了。如果一首情诗太滑向真实事件，那么我们不能充分感受便导致一种静态，使得永恒的感情在其中丧失；如果我们将情诗只局限于我们所能感觉的，那么别人就会消失。”
选自罗伯特·勃莱《在两个世界爱一个女人》（985年）的序言