I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root.
我了解那底部，她说。我用粗大的直根了解它：
It is what you fear.
它，是你所恐惧的。
I do not fear it: I have been there.
我不怕它：我已去过。
Is it the sea you hear in me,
你在我深处听到的可是大海，
Its dissatisfactions?
以及它的不满？
Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness?
或是虚空之声，是你的疯狂？
Love is a shadow.
爱是一个影子。
How you lie and cry after it.
你撒着谎，哭喊着穷追不舍。
Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.
听啊：它的蹄声。它已经跑开，像一匹马。
All night I shall gallop thus, impetuously,
我也将彻夜这样奔腾，狂野地，
Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,
直到你的头化为石头，枕头化为一方小小的赛马场，
Echoing, echoing.
回响，回响。
Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons?
或者，我应给你带来毒药的声音？
This is rain now, this big hush.
它现在化作雨了，这巨大的静寂。
And this is the fruit of it: tin-white, like arsenic.
这就是它的果实：锡白色，像砒霜。
I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.
我已饱经日落的暴行。
Scorched to the root
我红色的丝
My red filaments burn and stand, a hand of wires.
烤焦到根部，燃烧，竖起，一只铁丝的手。
Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs.
现在，我断成碎片，棍棒似地飞散出去。
A wind of such violence
如此暴力的风
Will tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek.
不会容忍旁观：我必须尖叫。
The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me
月亮也绝不仁慈：她会拖住我，
Cruelly, being barren.
残酷地，因为她不育。
Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.
她的辐射灼伤了我。或许，是我不放过她。
I let her go. I let her go
我放她走了。我放走了她，
Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery.
萎缩了，干瘪了，像经过了彻底的手术。
How your bad dreams possess and endow me.
你的恶梦占有了我，也馈赠我。
I am inhabited by a cry.
我被一种啼哭附了身。
Nightly it flaps out
它夜夜扑闪而出，
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.
以它的钩爪，寻找值得一爱的东西。
I am terrified by this dark thing
这黑暗的东西睡在我的体内，
That sleeps in me;
吓得我魂不附体；
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.
我整天都感到它轻柔的羽毛似的转动，它的恶毒。
Clouds pass and disperse.
云朵飘过，云朵疏散。
Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?
那些一去不回的苍白，都是爱的面孔吗？
Is it for such I agitate my heart?
我心神不宁，是否因为这一切？
I am incapable of more knowledge.
我无力承受更多知识。
What is this, this face
这是什么，这张充满杀机
So murderous in its strangle of branches?—
被树枝掐住的脸，是什么？──
Its snaky acids kiss.
它毒蛇的酸液嘶嘶响。
It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults
它僵化着意志。这些孤立的、迟缓的缺陷
That kill, that kill, that kill.
能够致命，致命，致命。
注：
(1) 茹丝•芬莱特
1931 -出生于美国、主要居住在英国的女诗人、翻译家。她是英国小说家艾伦•斯里托的妻子，普拉斯生前最后一年多的好友。