他是个赶驴人。

He was a donkey driver.

他，萨拉丁说，就像电子造出来的，

He was, said Saladin, what the electrons made him,

以你能预期的方式编好号码。

numerized as well as could be expected.

那排掉重量的俯冲和吱嘎声，所有那些

That weight-draining swoop and creak, all that

飘浮的内心烟雾。

drifting interior smoke.

他训练理论家呻吟，

He drilled the theorists to groan,

那些在自己牙齿的音高上工作的法学家躺倒在地上。

the jurists who worked on the pitchtone of their teeth threw themselves down.

马利克，萨拉丁的儿子，阿勒颇的摄政王，像一只黄蜂

Malik, son of Saladin, regent of Aleppo, like a wasp

从这个醉鬼谈话的肉里汲取。

sipped from the meat of the speech of the drunkard.

瞧，这个人曾走路穿过长满黑莓藤条的田野

Look, this man had walked through fields of blackberry canes

和穿过雪原和越过冰川

and through snowfields and over glaciers

并且曾一边走路一边在一棵树下用厚眼皮的墨水

and had written on a blond wood board under a tree

在淡色木板上写下

in black heavy-lidded ink

（黑熊和獾在树里打洞）

(in which black bears and badgers dug holes)

它们的谈话，没错，

as he walked, their speech,

也就是冰川的直觉。

that is, yes, the intuitions of  glaciers.

这，马利克认为，值得他在阿勒颇，这个有着从狭窄畜栏里狂奔而出的太阳的地方，度过几个下午时光。

This, Malik decided, was worth some afternoons of his time in sun-out-of-the-chute Aleppo.

萨拉丁，遥远，在他的胡须的纬度的低处，灌木丛似地想起狮心王理查和法国的腓力二世，软骨和硬骨，

Saladin, distant, low in the latitudes of his beard, thought thicketly of Richard the Lionheart and Phillip Augustus of France, gristle and bone,

带着上帝那又长又尖的死亡武器入侵而来。

breaching in with the hugely ranged and pronged death weapon of God.

必须让这孩子把老师的警报器的电线切断。

The boy would cut wires from the teacher’s alarm.

题解: 苏拉瓦底是十二世纪波斯苏菲派和新帕拉图派哲学家，他在1191年三十七岁时被马利克所杀。有人说马利克极不愿意地让他在狱中饿死。原因是马利克极拜服苏 拉瓦底，而这使当地保守派理论家很恼火，害怕马克利对苏拉瓦底的着迷导致他们的影响力下降。他们对马利克的父亲施加压力，父亲则对刚被他委任为阿勒颇摄政 王的儿子马利克施加压力，要他杀死苏拉瓦底。