將船買酒白雲邊

Li T'ai Po　　Amy Lowell

So, Master, the wine gave you something,

I suppose.

 

I think I see you,

Your silks all disarranged,

Lolling in a green-marble pavilion,

Ogling the concubines of the Emperor's Court

Who pass the door

In yellow coats, and white jade ear-drops,

Their hair pleated in folds like the hundredclouds.

I watch you,

Hiccoughing poetry between drinks,

Sinking as the sun sinks,

Sleeping for twenty-four hours,

While they peek at you,

Giggling,

Through the open door.

 

You found something in the wine,

I imagine,

Since you could not leave it,

Even when, after years of wandering,

You sat in the boat with one sail,

Travelling down the zigzag rivers

On your way back to Court.

You had a dream,

I conjecture.

You saw something under the willow-lights of thewater

Which swept you to dizziness,

So that you toppled over the edge of the boat,

And gasped, and became your dream.

 

Twelve hundred years

Or thereabouts,

Did the wine do it?

I would sit in the purple moonlight

And drink three hundred cups,

If I believed it.

Three hundred full cups,

After your excellent fashion,

While in front of me

The river dazzle ran before the moon,

And the light flaws of the evening wind

Scattered the notes of nightingales

Loosely among the kuai trees

 

They erected a temple to you:

“GreatDoctor,

Prince of Poetry,

Immortal man who loved drink.”

I detest wine,

And I have no desire for the temple,

Which under the circumstances

Is fortunate.

But I would sacrifice even sobriety

If, when I was thoroughly drunk,

I could see what you saw

Under the willow-clouded water,

The day you died.

 

參考：

Amy Lowell《Pictures of The Floating World（浮世繪）》（Kessinger，1919。2007新版）

 

 

蔣文燕〈《松花箋》對李白詩歌的翻譯與介紹〉第三節有這首詩的翻譯（《松花箋》見前篇）

 

“GreatDoctor, Prince of Poetry, Immortal man who loved drink.”

莫名覺得Doctor很可愛（？）

《Pictures of The Floating World》

目錄《漢風集》（Chinoiseries）

LI T'AI PO