精彩时文，逐句精读，【玩词】栏目“时文精选精读”系列，专为快速阅读打造，带你领略国外媒体优秀时文风采，内容涵盖新闻、人物、旅行、观念、生活等各方面，愿你爱上零散而不散漫的阅读时光。
从斯莱戈郡到库勒庄园，从库勒庄园到都柏林，从叶芝一生所路过的地方，我们或许能感受到这位诗人留在人世间的气息。
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet, Senator, Nobel Laureate – and a firm believer in ghosts.
威廉·巴特勒·叶芝是爱尔兰诗人，参议员，以及诺贝尔文学奖获得者，同时也是鬼魂存在的坚定信奉者。
He claimed that after death we relive our passionate moments over and over, loving the same souls, burning down the same houses and acting out the same murders.
叶芝称当身死之后，我们会一遍遍重温生命中那些激情澎湃的时刻，爱上同一个灵魂，烧毁同一栋房子，或是一次次重演同样的谋杀行动。
This year, the poet's 150th birthday, is the perfect time to search for ghosts in his native land.
今年是这位诗人诞辰150周年，也恰是一个去往他的故乡寻访鬼魂的绝佳时刻。
Born in Dublin, Yeats grew up in County Sligo, in Ireland's northwest.
叶芝生于都柏林，长于爱尔兰西北的斯莱戈郡。
You can still imagine the scruffy young poet darting about the coastal town of Sligo, chasing fairies, scrawling words and building worlds.
你仍可想象这位衣冠不整的年轻诗人奔走于斯莱戈郡的海边小镇，追逐精灵，草写文字，创建一个又一个世界的情景。
注：scruffy指“衣着脏乱的”；scrawl指“潦草地写”。
Yeats believed that when you spoke of a dead man you conjured his ghost, and if this is true, surely Yeats' ghost comes to Sligo often:
叶芝相信当你谈及一个已故之人，你就是在召唤他的鬼魂。如果这种说法成立，那么毫无疑问，叶芝的鬼魂定会常来斯莱戈郡：
注：conjure指“招魂”“用魔术变出”。
a famous Yeats summer school is held here every year; a statue of the poet stands in front of the Ulster Bank; and a building fa?ade features a vast mural of his face.
每年夏天这里都会开办著名的叶芝暑期学校；城中阿尔斯特银行的前面，竖着一尊叶芝的立身像；而一栋大楼的正面则醒目地绘着一幅叶芝面部肖像的大型壁画。
注：fa?ade指“(建筑物的)正面”；mural指“壁画”。
Just out of town are the modest grounds of a Yeats United Football Club, and at the village of Rosses Point, 8km to the north, a sign implores you to bring your rubbish home “for Yeats' sake”.
就在城外，叶芝联合足球俱乐部占据着几块不大的场地。而由此以北八公里外的罗斯海角村中则立着一块牌子，牌子上的文字恳请你“为了叶芝”，将自己的垃圾带回家去。
注：implore指“恳求”；for sb's sake意思是“为了……”
Also out at Rosses Point is a house called Elsinore, where Yeats and his brother Jack spent childhood summer holidays.
此外，在罗斯海角村中还有一处名为埃尔西诺的房子，叶芝和他的哥哥杰克在这里度过了许多童年的暑假时光。
It is now an abandoned pile of stone, gulped by ivy and strewn with broken bottles, cans and newspapers.
而现在，这所房子已成为一垒废石，吞没于常春藤蔓之中，藤蔓上还散落着许多破瓶子，饮料罐和废报纸。
注：strew a place with something指“往某处到处撒某物”。
It's an appropriate site for a poet who would later engrave on his home's stone wall: “And may these characters remain/ When all is ruin once again.”
对于一位之后会在家中石墙上刻下“愿但一切再毁之后，此文犹存”的诗人来说，这可真是个再合适不过的故居遗址。
Across town is Lissadell, an imposing, ultra-austere grey mansion, haunted by a different kind of history.
城镇的另一端坐落着里萨德尔庄园，在这栋庄严而格外朴素的灰色宅邸中，萦绕着一段不同的历史。
注：imposing指“庄严的”；austere指“朴素的”。
Here, Yeats used to visit the aristocratic sisters Constance and Eva Gore-Booth in the 1890s.
十九世纪九十年代，叶芝曾经常来到这里，拜访贵族姐妹康斯坦丝和伊娃·戈尔-布恩。
In 1916, Constance was among the Irish revolutionaries who hopelessly rose up against the British.
1916年，康斯坦丝加入爱尔兰革命者的行列，共同发动了一场没有胜算的反英国起义。
Fifteen men were executed in the wake of the Rising, and Yeats' brilliant, ambivalent poem Easter 1916 declared that with their deaths, “a terrible beauty” was born.
伴随起义而来的是15人被处以死刑。在他那才华横溢却又态度模糊的诗歌《1916年复活节》中，叶芝声称随着这些人的死亡，“一种恐怖的美却已诞生”。
注：in the wake of ... 指“紧随……之后”；ambivalent指“模棱两可的”。
Yeats' grave is a 8km drive southeast from Lissadell.
由里萨德尔向南开车行驶八公里，便到了叶芝的墓地。
The vast rock formation Ben Bulben looms alongside the cemetery at Drumcliffe, where Yeats chose to be buried.
鼓崖公墓是叶芝为自己选择的栖身之所，公墓的一侧赫然耸立着本布尔本山巨大的岩层。
注：rock formation指“岩层”；loom在这里指“赫然出现”。
Because the poet died in France in 1939 and his initial interment in a Roquebrune cemetery was disrupted during the war, some insist that the body at Drumcliffe belongs to someone else.
由于诗人死于1939年的法国，而他最初在法国罗克布罗恩的坟墓曾在战火中遭到破坏，因此一些人坚称鼓崖墓地中的骸骨实属他人。
注：interment指“坟墓”；cemetery指“墓地”“公墓”。
But whoever's bones lie in Yeats' grave, the headstone clearly bears the poet's words: “Cast a cold Eye/ On Life, on Death./ Horseman, pass by.”
但无论叶芝墓中所躺究竟为何人，墓碑上都清楚地刻着诗人的词句：“冷眼一瞥/生与死/骑者/且前行”。
注：headstone指“墓碑”；cast an eye on指“瞥一眼”。
Driving 20km south from Yeats' grave, I reached Lough Gill, a freshwater lake that is home to the island immortalised by Yeats' early poem, The Lake Isle of Innisfree.
从叶芝之墓向南行驶20公里，我到达了吉尔湖，位于这片淡水湖中的小岛因叶芝早年的诗歌《湖岛因尼斯弗里》而不朽于世。
注：immortalise指“使……不朽”
The poet said he wrote the piece while walking through the frenetic London streets, yearning for the seclusion of Sligo's lake isle.
诗人说，他是在穿过伦敦喧嚣的街道时写下这首诗的，那时他心中正渴望着斯莱戈郡湖心小岛的与世隔绝。
注：frenetic指“迅速而狂乱的”；yearn for sth.指“渴望……”；seclusion指“与世隔绝”；isle指“小岛”。
Many years later when Yeats brought his wife to show her the celebrated Innisfree, he rowed them both around the lake for hours, completely unable to find it.
多年后，叶芝携妻至此，要向她展示那值得称颂的因尼斯弗里湖岛。他划着船，载着妻子绕湖数小时，却完全未能寻得它的踪影。
My next stop in pursuit of the poet was County Galway in Ireland's west, 115km south of Sligo.
我追逐诗人的下一站是斯莱戈郡以南115公里，位于爱尔兰西部的戈尔韦郡。
In his 20s, Yeats travelled around here with his close friend Lady Augusta Gregory, collecting folklore and fairy tales from locals.
二十多岁的时候，叶芝曾与密友格雷戈里夫人一起环游此地，从当地人那里搜集民谣和精灵传说。
One of Yeats' favourite stories features a troop of fairies who decide to punish a flirtatious country boy.
叶芝最喜欢的一个故事描写了一群仙女，她们决定要去惩罚一个爱调情的乡下小子。
注：troop在这里指“(一)群”；flirtatious源于单词flirt，指“爱调情的，轻浮的”。
The fairies affix a corpse to the boy's shoulders, and tell him he must bury the corpse before sunrise.
仙女们将一具尸体附在男孩的肩上，叫他必得在天亮前将其埋葬。
Other bodies rise from the dirt, attacking the boy, and he struggles to get the corpse off his back.
从土里冒出一具具其他尸体，他们向男孩发起攻击，而男孩则挣扎着要把身上的那一具从背上弄下来。
When he finally forces it under the ground, he goes on to lead a cleaner life.
终于，男孩成功将尸体按入土中，而他也从此过起了清白的生活。
Yeats, who is sometimes called the last Romantic and the first Modernist, often featured fairies in his early poems, but over time, the fairies came to be replaced by ghosts.
叶芝有时会被人称为最后的浪漫主义者，或是最初的现代主义者，他早年的诗歌常以精灵为主角，但随着时间的推移，精灵最终为鬼魂所取代。
County Galway's wild green stretches have not changed much since Yeats' time, still punctuated by crumbling medieval towers.
戈尔韦郡大片的绿野荒原自叶芝生活的年代起并未发生太多的改变，仍然时有一座摇摇欲坠的中世纪塔楼将其隔断。
注：stretch指“一段(路、地方等)”；punctuate作动词指“时不时被打断”；crumbling源自crumble，指“要倒塌的”。
It is an isolated, beautiful landscape, only occasionally interrupted by lines of identical modern housing.
这是一片荒僻而美丽的地方，扰乱其间只有偶然出现的数排一模一样的现代房屋。
注：identical指“一模一样的”。
These complexes, relics of the 2008 economic crisis, are now known as ghost estates. Built during Ireland's property bubble, they have since been abandoned.
这些建筑是2008年经济危机留下的残骸，现已被人们视为幽灵地产。它们建于房地产泡沫之时，风波过后即遭遗弃。
注：complex做名词时指“建筑群”。
Yeats regularly came to the County Galway estate of Coole Park to stay with Lady Gregory.
叶芝时常来戈尔韦郡到格雷戈里夫人的库勒庄园中作客。
While he was here, Yeats walked through Coole's seven woods, dreaming of his doomed love for Maud Gonne, an activist, heiress and actress who rejected his marriage proposals for decades.
住在这里的时候，叶芝会穿过库勒庄园的七片树林，幻想着他对茅德·冈小姐那注定没有结果的爱情。茅德·冈小姐是一位爱尔兰民族主义者，演员以及大笔遗产的继承人，她十数年中曾多次拒绝了叶芝的求婚。
注：doomed指“注定会失败的”
Also here, Yeats wrote his famous poem The Wild Swans at Coole, in which the poet watches the birds “scatter wheeling in great broken rings” and reflects that while the birds seem unchanged, he is growing old.
同样是在这里，叶芝写下了他那首著名的诗篇《库勒的野天鹅》。在诗中诗人看着天鹅们“(大声地)拍打着翅膀盘旋，勾划出大而碎的圆圈”，想到鸟似乎没有任何改变，而他本人却正在老去。
The poem ends with one of Yeats' characteristic rhetorical questions, as he asks where the swans will have gone “when I awake some day/ To find they have flown away?”.
诗歌以叶芝颇具代表性的一句反问结尾，诗人问道“(当我)有一天醒来，它们已飞去时”，这些天鹅是去往了何方？
When I wandered through the estate's 6km of nature reserve, moss lined the paved paths, ivy clambered up trees, and across the lake, Yeats' distant swans still drifted.
漫步穿过庄园平方六公里的自然保留地，我看到苔藓长满了铺砌的小路，藤蔓攀上树枝，在湖的那边，当年叶芝笔下远处的天鹅仍旧浮于水面之上。
注：clamber指“攀爬”
All those summers at Coole inspired the poet to find a home of his own not far away.
在库勒庄园度过的那些夏天激发了诗人在不远之处寻找一间自己居所的念头。
Just 7km to the northeast stands Yeats' tower, Thoor Ballylee.
庄园向东北仅七公里，便是叶芝的图尔巴列利塔。
In 1917, Yeats scraped together ￡35 to become the proud owner of his very own Norman “castle”.
1917年，叶芝东拼西凑出35英镑，买下属于他自己诺曼“城堡”，成为了其骄傲的主人。
注：scrape together指“东拼西凑”
However, even after years of restoration, it still had no electricity or indoor plumbing and often flooded.
然而，即使在多年翻修之后，这座城堡依然没有电力以及室内管道系统，而且还常常遭水淹。
注：plumbing指“管道系统”。
Shortly after acquiring the tower at the age of 51, Yeats married Georgie Hyde-Lees, a 25-year-old Englishwoman.
叶芝于51岁买下了巴列利塔，不久后他便娶了当时25岁的英国女人乔治·海德里斯为妻。
Soon after the marriage, Hyde-Lees realised she had a particular talent for channelling ghosts.
婚后不久，海德里斯发觉自己有一种能够与鬼魂沟通的独特才能。
To the delight of her new husband, Hyde-Lees felt her hand seized by a strange power, and found herself scribbling down ghostly transmissions from the other world.
她感到有一种奇异的力量控制住了自己的手，而这只手正记下魂魄自另一个世界传来的信息。这些都令她的新婚丈夫感到十分欣喜。
注：scribble指“潦草地写”。
Inside the medieval tower, the couple held thousands of conversations with these ghostly communicators.
在这座中世纪的塔楼中，这对夫妻与这些鬼魂信使进行了上千次的对话。
Conveniently, many of them dispelled Yeats' anxiety he might have married the wrong woman.
很多对话十分适宜地打消了叶芝的疑虑，使他不去担心自己是否娶错了姑娘。
注：dispel指“消除，驱散”。
Through Hyde-Lees' skilled hand, the ghosts not only advised Yeats on appropriate metaphors for poetry and the development of a philosophical system, but also on the importance of regular sexual activity and the careful details of family planning.
通过海德里斯那技艺精湛的手，鬼魂不仅在如何为诗歌选取恰当的隐喻，如何发展一套系统的哲学体系方面给叶芝以指导，同时也告诉他有规律的性生活是如何重要，并在生儿育女的细枝末节上给予了他详细的点拨。
My final stop was Dublin.
我的旅行的最后一站是都柏林。
Here, the post office building, destroyed in the Rising and rebuilt in the same Georgian style, was brimming with people.
都柏林的邮政总局里熙熙攘攘地挤满了人，这座大楼曾毁于1916年起义，而后人们又依照它原先的乔治王朝式风格将其重建。
注：brim with ... 指“充满了……”。
The Abbey Theatre, co-founded by Yeats in 1904, was preparing for the night's performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
在艾比剧院，这座于1904年由叶芝与他人合力创办的剧院中，演员们正为晚间《仲夏夜之梦》的演出做着准备。
And at the nearby city park of St Stephen's Green, Henry Moore's angular statue for Yeats caught the trees' shadow in view of the tame swans that settled by the stream.
在附近的圣·史蒂芬斯城市公园中，有一尊亨利·摩尔为叶芝所铸的棱角雕像，雕像立于树影之中，视线所及范围内，能看到驯服的天鹅栖于溪流之侧。
注：亨利·摩尔，英国著名雕塑家，代表作“斜倚的人形”，擅于“把人物的因素大胆而自由地异化为有韵律的空间形态”；in view of指“看得见……的地方”
Just a three-minute walk from the park is Toner's Pub, which Yeats used to frequent.
由公园出发，步行仅三分钟，便能到达托纳酒吧，当年叶芝便是这里的常客。
On the Tuesday night that I visited, every chair was filled as men and women threw their voices out over creamy pints of Guinness, raising eyebrows, pointing fingers and spilling laughter across the dark wooden tables.
我是在星期二晚上光临这家酒吧的，当晚座无虚席，男男女女们隔着一品托一品托泡沫绵密的吉尼斯黑啤酒大声喊话，扬起眉毛，指指点点，洒落的笑声溅满了一张张深色的木头桌子。
I wandered a couple of blocks over to Ireland's National Library, regularly open late, where a long-term exhibition, established in 2006, presents a deep, sustained exploration of the poet's life and works.
我漫步走过几个街区，来到了爱尔兰国家图书馆，这里经常开到很晚。自2006年图书馆开办了一个长期展览，以展出对诗人叶芝的生活与作品深入且持续不断的探究。
注：sustained指“持久的”。
Faintly lit cabinets display poem drafts, golden candlesticks, images of the women Yeats loved and pages from the ghostly communicators' script.
灯光微弱的橱柜中展示着诗人的手稿，金色的烛台，叶芝所爱的女人们的画像以及一页页来自鬼魂信使们的笔迹。
注：cabinet在这里指“橱柜”。
As I moved through the space, voices spoke over each other: actors read poems, Yeats' friends and lovers remembered the man, and academics sifted through Irish politics and mysticism, all contributing to a ghostly tangle of sounds.
步行穿过展厅，我听到一个个声音层叠交替，响于耳畔：演员们在读诗，叶芝的朋友与情人忆起了故人，学者们一点点审阅着爱尔兰的政治与神秘主义，所有这些声音交织混杂为一片幽灵之声。
注：sift原意是“筛”，后引申义也有“仔细核查”；contribute可以指“是(造成某现象)的一个原因”。
Now and again, in one of the only recordings of the poet, Yeats intoned his intention to arise and go now, and go to Innisfree.
时而，于仅有的几段诗人的录音存稿中，可听到叶芝在吟咏他的愿望，他即将起身而去，去往因尼斯湖岛。
注：now and again指“时而，不时”；intone指“吟咏”。
原文选自BBC Travel
作者Alice Miller
新东方旗下唯一双语杂志，提供最新的英语应试备考方法、各类留学资讯和地道的双语文章。关注公众号，
回复【订阅】，获取《新东方英语》的订阅方法。
回复【购买】，获取《新东方英语》单刊购买方法
联系客服
