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