Sea Grapes

舞者

Derek Walcott – Poetry


That sail which leans on light,
tired of islands,
a schooner beating up the Caribbean

for home, could be Odysseus,
home-bound on the Aegean;
that father and husband's

longing, under gnarled sour grapes, is like
the adulterer hearing Nausicaa's name in
every gull's outcry.

This brings nobody peace. The ancient war
between obsession and responsibility will
never finish and has been the same

for the sea-wanderer or the one on shore now
wriggling on his sandals to walk home, since
Troy sighed its last flame,

and the blind giant's boulder heaved the trough from
whose groundswell the great hexameters come to the
conclusions of exhausted surf.

The classics can console. But not enough.



"Sea Grapes" from COLLECTED POEMS 1948-1984
by Derek Walcott.
Copyright © 1986 by Derek Walcott.
Used by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
All rights reserved.

CAUTION: Users are warned that this work is
protected under copyright laws and downloading is strictly prohibited. The right to reproduce or transfer the work via any medium must be secured with Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.

Poem selected by Lars Rydquist, head librarian,
Nobel Library of the Swedish Academy.

小香可

语词的双关唤起叠加的意象统摄全篇。经典的意义——can console. But not enough——犹如schooner实现首尾意韵上的呼应和循环。This brings nobody peace既预示史诗血腥的结尾，也撩动着在经典的海洋中完成一段冒险之旅的欲望，葡萄的意象让人联想起巴库斯、狂欢、野性和迷醉。极好的作品。