读泰戈尔的诗 Unending love

泰戈尔（Rabindranath Tagore）是印度著名的诗人。他早年曾在英国留学，他的诗歌深受西方文化影响，但同时家庭环境和宗教背景影响着他。他创作了许多浪漫主义的情诗，也有歌颂生活和向往未来的故事诗。我很喜欢他的《Let life be beautiful like summer flowers》(生如夏花)，读起来给人启迪和激励，“I believe I am born as the bright summer flowers. Do not withered undefeated fiery demon rule”.

最近在流利说打卡读诗，读到他写的一首关于爱情的诗歌名为《Unending love》(无止境的爱)，这首诗把过去当下和未来的爱情融为一体，将爱升华。诗人比喻所有的爱情会像汇入时间的河流一样，不会结束，“In life after life, in age after age forever”。原文如下：

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times,

In life after life, in age after age forever.

My spell-bound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs

That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms

In life after life, in age after age forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,

Its ancient tale of being apart or together,

As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge

Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:

You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount

At the heart of time love of one for another.

We have played alongside millions of lovers, shared in the same

Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell -

Old love, but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you,

The love of all man's days both past and forever:

Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life,

The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours -

 And the songs of every poet both past and forever.

阅读小贴士

读英文的诗歌，生词不会太多，但难点在于理解诗词的意思。在阅读中，我总结有几点要注意：

1，单词的意思应跳出字面解释，并尽量结合上下文及语境理解。比如这首诗中，heap字典解释为“堆积”，仅凭字面意思很难理解。于是结合上一句讲到过去的爱情重新翻新，那么我理解上句和这句诗的意思应该就是“昨天的爱情重新翻新；新的爱情来到你的脚边，化入你的灵魂。” 这样让语境更加连贯。当然，你也可以有自己的理解，按照自己的想象翻译我觉得都是没有问题的。

2，诗词中会有倒装甚至省略动词和介词。如果读起来不顺时，可以适当调整下语序。比如诗歌的倒数第五行"Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you,The love of all man's days both past and forever:”这里就用了倒装。可以调整为"Today the love of all man's days both past and forever is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you." 作者用倒装是为了突出解释“the love of all man's days both past and forever” 就是冒号后面的那两句。最后一句诗歌也用了倒装，只要把”And the songs of every poet both past and forever."插入"merging with...."调整为"The memories of all loves and the songs of every poet both past and forever merging with this one love of ours"。

3, 为了帮助理解诗歌的背景，可以去阅读介绍作者的一些文章和书籍。

生词注解

spell-bound adj. 被咒语所镇住的；出神的；被迷住的；茫然不知所之的

spell v. 拼写，拼出 n. 魔法；符咒，咒语 | 〔某种活动、天气、疾病等的〕一段时间〔通常时间较短〕 | 吸引力，魅力；迷惑力

bound： bind的过去式和过去分词  be bound (by sth  受（某事物）约束

chronicles n. 圣经旧约

Clad  adj. 穿衣的；覆盖的 vt. 在金属外覆以另一种金属 v. 穿衣（clothe的过去式和过去分词）

piercing adj. 刺穿的；敏锐的；尖刻的；打动人心的 n. 熔化穿孔 v. 刺穿；感动；洞察（pierce的ing形式）诗歌中是动词的ing形式，表示穿破的动作

“Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time”这句诗可翻译为“披着北斗之光穿破黑暗”

诗歌赏读

读这首诗，如果没有了解过泰戈尔的情史，会简单地认为这是热恋中的人写下的诗。了解过他和他老师的故事之后，就会明白在诗人心中，爱情永远是一段童话般的存在。

也许是因为这种若即若离的感觉更让人难舍难分，于是诗人想象他的爱人为明亮的北斗星，给予他慰藉。即使他们经历了痛苦的分别，他仍以乐观的心态将爱情的时限放宽至未来，他想象他们的爱和人世间所有的爱都融合在了一起，他安慰自己说：“在爱情中的人何尝没有体会过这些痛苦呢？”。

他像一个引路人带着他的爱人来到一个美丽的大千世界，在那里他们体会到全世界的爱，听到了所有的爱情赞歌。

读完这首诗，你会觉得豁然开朗，原来爱情还可以用在时间和空间的象限里面放大放长。当我们在爱情中受伤的时候，读一读，帮助我们乐观地走出来；而当我们在享受爱情的时候，也读一读，让诗人的赞歌余音绕梁。