那你想读一首诗吗？
城市
卡瓦菲斯
西川 译
你说：“我要去另一块土地，我将去另一片大海。另一座城市，比这更好的城市，将被发现。
我的每一项努力都是对命运的谴责；
而我的心被埋葬了，像一具尸体。
在这座荒原上，我的神思还要坚持多久？
无论我的脸朝向哪里，无论我的视线投向何方，
我在此看到的尽是我生命的黑色废墟。
多年以来，我在此毁灭自己，虚掷自己。”
你会发现没有新的土地，你会发现没有别的大海。
这城市将尾随着你，你游荡的街道
将一仍其旧，你老去，周围将是同样的邻居；
这些房屋也将一仍其旧，你将在其中白发丛生。
你将到达的永远是同一座城市，别指望还有他乡。
没有渡载你的船，没有供你行走的道路，
你既已毁掉你的生活，在这小小的角落，
你便已经毁掉了它，在整个世界。
Why not read a poem?
The City
BY C. P. CAVAFY
TRANSLATED BY EDMUND KEELEY
You said: “I’ll go to another country, go to another shore,
find another city better than this one.
Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong
and my heart lies buried like something dead.
How long can I let my mind moulder in this place?
Wherever I turn, wherever I look,
I see the black ruins of my life, here,
where I’ve spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally.”
You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore.
This city will always pursue you.
You’ll walk the same streets, grow old
in the same neighborhoods, turn gray in these same houses.
You’ll always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere:
there’s no ship for you, there’s no road.
Now that you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner,
you’ve destroyed it everywhere in the world.
C. P. Cavafy, “The City” from C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Translation Copyright © 1975, 1992 by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Reproduced with permission of Princeton University Press
Source: C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems (Princeton University Press, 1975)