本帖最后由 云天 于 2009-8-21 02:51 AM 编辑
小西老师的解释很到位. 
狗到英文解释，顺手搬来。
To An Athlete Dying Young
A. E. Housman. 1859–
THE time you won your town the race 1
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
Lines 1-4
In the first stanza of “To an Athlete Dying Young,” the speaker presents a remembered image of a young athlete, a runner, on a day when he had won a race for his town. That the athlete is a runner might evoke an association with the Greek Olympiad, an ancient athletic competition. Lines 2 through 4 establish the reaction of the townspeople to their competitor’s victory. It is clear that the athlete was much lauded, and he was placed on a emotional/psychological pedestal as well as a physical one, wherein he was brought home “shoulder-high” through the town’s marketplace. Line 3 singles out the admirers as men and boys. This could suggest the classical Greek concept of the love of males for the physical beauty of the perfected young male body.
To-day, the road all runners come, 5
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Lines 5-8
These lines tell us that the athlete is again being carried “shoulder-high” by the townspeople; this time, however, pallbearers are carrying him in a casket to his grave. The phrase “The road all runners come” signals the speaker’s awareness of the mortality of all people. Line 7 continues the narrative by telling us that the body is lowered and “set” at a “threshold.” The “threshold” may literally be the physical edges of a grave, but it could also refer to the boundary between earthly reality and the world of the dead. The “threshold” thus becomes the entryway to the place where the dead athlete will spend eternity.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay, 10
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Lines 9-10
Here, the diction, or language, of the poem begins to change subtly from the simple words and direct statements of the first two stanzas to a more lofty or lyrical manner of expression. This coincides with the speaker’s shift from simply relating the plot of his story to his philosophical interpretation of events. In lines 9 and 10, the speaker suggests that the athlete was “smart” to die and leave the natural world, where “glory does not stay.” The speaker implies that, as the athlete had grown older, or as time progressed, the townspeople would not remember his victory and, perhaps, other runners would supplant him as victor of the town race. This potential outcome points to the idea that the world, in general, is made up of people who are fickle, with feelings so changeable that they might hold someone up as a hero or as an object of love at one point in time, only to later forget them.
Lines 11-12
In these lines, Housman introduces the laurel as a symbol of victory, but also of victory’s ephemerality and of the delicate shortness of life, especially youthful life. The laurel wreath was traditionally worn by victorious Greek athletes; it is also a symbol for poets, who, in ancient times, would receive “laurels” for winning poetry competitions. The idea of a laurel leaf representing the brevity of physical beauty and strength is furthered by its comparison to the feminine and delicate rose, which grows early in the season and withers and dies quickly (but not as quickly as the laurel). The speaker continues to express the concept of glory fading early and of youthful male beauty being short-lived.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers 15
After earth has stopped the ears:
Lines 13-16
In this stanza, the speaker reinforces the idea that it is wise to “slip” away into death at the peak of youthful athleticism, while still lauded as a hero. The athlete will not have to see his record being “cut” (broken) nor wait for the inevitable time when the cheering stops.
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man. 20
Lines 17-20
These lines emphasize, and perhaps intensify for us, the speaker’s observation that all athletes, at some point, fade in their ability to perform and to win. Their “renown” eventually outruns them: because they can no longer uphold their athletic reputation by sustaining their peak performance, their reputation, or “name,” dies before they do. Since the hero-athlete of this poem has died while at his peak, he will not have to become part of this “rout” (crowd) of has-been athletes.
So set, before its echoes fade, 21
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.
Lines 21-24
The action progresses in these lines, and the persona speaks to his fellow townspeople, directing them to place the athlete’s body down at its grave quickly before his record or reputation and the townspeople’s memories of his victory fade. Housman’s choice of the word “set” in line 21 not only poetically echoes his use of the same word in line 7, but it makes us feel that a permanence can occur in the dead athlete’s reputation and glory — that the swift running foot can be “set” like concrete to remain just the way it was when the beautiful young man died. The fact that the speaker hurries the townspeople to “set” the “fleet foot” down at the edge of the world of the dead (“the sill of shade”) before the foot’s “echoes fade” emphasizes how quickly our youthful lives pass. In lines 23 and 24, we are given the image of the victor’s challenge-cup still being celebrated as it is held out toward the “low lintel,” or ornament over the door to the world of the dead. This stanza particularly demonstrates the tension between the idea that life is full of vibrancy and energy and the concept that it might be advantageous to die young. The images of this section of the poem are, on the one hand, those of the “fleet” foot of the athlete, representative of all that life can offer in terms of vitality and celebration of physical being, and, on the other hand, the image of the challenge-cup forever belonging to the victor after death, something that could not happen in life.
And round that early-laurelled head 25
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.
Lines 25-28
The last stanza of “To an Athlete Dying Young” presents the image of the dead athlete having passed through the threshold into the world of the dead. He is wearing the laurel wreath of victory, and in the phrase “early-laureled” we are reminded that both his victory and death occurred during his youth. The dead who come to gaze at him are “strengthless,” seemingly in contrast to the athlete, who is still depicted as young and strong because he was “smart” enough to die in his youth. The garland is expressed as “unwithered,” reiterating Housman’s theme of the permanent victory an early death might provide. The garland is “briefer than a girl’s,” meaning, perhaps, that the garland usually (in the natural world) withers more quickly than the rose Housman introduces in line 12, but that here it will live forever as a symbol of a glory that will not fade as it would with the passage of earthly time. If we accept that Housman is also using the laurel-leaf garland as a symbol of poetry, or the poet, then we might interpret these last lines to mean that the poem itself, as a garland of words, represents the only permanence — that art alone can transcend death. |
发表于 2009-8-18 19:00:49
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