羡慕别人的诗作
——罗伯特·哈斯

有传说认为海妖并不唱歌。
说她们唱歌只是水手编撰的故事罢了。
于是奥德修斯被绑在桅杆上，被那首
他并没有听见的乐曲所折磨—俯冲的海浪，
刀割般的风，还有饥饿的离岸鸟群，扑面而来—
那些采集海藻作花园覆料的沉默无声的女妖们，
看见他在勒紧的绳索里挣扎，看见
他眼睛里满溢的渴望，在这乱石荒岛上
她们被她们的想象永远改变了，她们想象着
他想象的那首她们不曾唱过的歌。

Envy of Other People’s Poems
Robert Hass

In one version of the legend the sirens couldn’t sing.
It was only a sailor’s story that they could.
So Odysseus, lashed to the mast, was harrowed
By a music that he didn’t hear–plungings of sea,
Wind-shear, the off-shore hunger of the birds–
And the mute women gathering kelp for garden mulch,
Seeing him strain against the cordage, seeing
The awful longing in his eyes, are changed forever
On their rocky waste of island by their imagination
Of his imagination of the song they didn’t sing.