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《凯尔特的薄暮》是爱尔兰著名诗人叶芝的代表作之一，这是一部特殊的作品。之所以说它特殊，原因有二：第一，这是诗人叶芝以诗歌的笔法写出，却又并非诗集的作品。第二，这是诗人用来表达他对爱尔兰永恒的热爱的一部重要作品。实际上，这是叶芝满怀激情整理出的一部文字优美的爱尔兰神话传说集。诗人浸淫在爱尔兰文化中多年，对于爱尔兰传说中的仙女等魔幻力量的存在深信不疑，这种浪漫信仰给他的诗歌创作增添了特殊光彩。为了回报爱尔兰民族文化这个给他提供了无限灵感的美的母体，叶芝用诗人的笔触，记录下他喜爱的凯尔特风土人情。本书集结了或绵延数页，或寥寥几句的乡人闲谈和神话传说，风格和形式有点类似我国蒲松龄的《聊斋志异》。不过，与《聊斋志异》不同的是，本书更多的是强调诗人本人对于魔幻世界的思索与感激。
本文节选自其中的一篇，因篇幅所限，有删节。
Last summer, whenever I had finished my day’s work, I used to go wandering in certain 2)roomy woods, and there I would often meet an old countryman, and talk to him about his work and about the woods. He had spent all his life 3)lopping away the 4)witch elm and the 5)hazel and the 6)privet and the 7)hornbeam from the paths, and had thought much about the natural and supernatural creatures of the wood. He has heard the hedgehog—he calls him—“grunting like a Christian,” and is certain that he steals apples by rolling about under an apple tree until there is an apple sticking to every 8)quill. He is certain too that the cats, of whom there are many in the woods, have a language of their own—some kind of old Irish. He says, “Cats were 9)serpents, and they were made into cats at the time of some great change in the world. That is why they are hard to kill, and why it is dangerous to 10)meddle with them. If you annoy a cat it might claw or bite you in a way that would put poison in you, and that would be the serpent’s tooth.” Sometimes he thinks they change into wild cats, and then a nail grows on the end of their tails; but these wild cats are not the same as the 11)marten cats, who have been always in the woods. The foxes were once tame, as the cats are now, but they ran away and became wild. He talks of all wild creatures with what seems an affectionate interest, though at times his eyes will twinkle with pleasure as he remembers how he made hedgehogs unroll themselves when he was a boy, by putting 12)a wisp of burning straw under them.
I am not certain that he distinguishes between the natural and supernatural very clearly. He told me the other day that foxes and cats like to be in the “13)forths” after nightfall; and he will certainly pass from some story about a fox to a story about a spirit with less change of voice than when he is going to speak about a marten cat—a rare beast nowadays. Many years ago he used to work in the garden, and once they put him to sleep in a garden-house where there was a 14)loft full of apples, and all night he could hear people 15)rattling plates and knives and forks over his head in the loft. Once, at any rate, he has seen an 16)unearthly sight in the woods. He says, “One time I was out cutting timber over in Inchy, and about eight o’clock one morning when I got there I saw a girl picking nuts, with her hair hanging down over her shoulders, brown hair, and she had a good, clean face, and she was tall and nothing on her head, and her dress no way 17)gaudy but simple, and when she felt me coming she 18)gathered herself up and was gone as if the earth had swallowed her up. And I followed her and looked for her, but I never could see her again from that day to this, never again.”
Others too have seen spirits in the Enchanted Woods. A labourer told us of what a friend of his had seen in a part of the woods that is called Shanwalla, from some old village that was before the weed. He said, “One evening I parted from Lawrence Mangan in the yard, and he went away through the path in Shanwalla, 19)an’ 20)bid me goodnight. And two hours after, there he was back again in the yard, an’ bid me light a candle that was in the 21)stable. An’ he told me that when he got into Shanwalla, a little fellow about as high as his knee, but having a head as big as a man’s body, came beside him and led him out of the path an’ 22)round about, and at last it brought him to the 23)limekiln, and then it vanished and left him.”
…
I often entangle myself in argument more complicated than even those paths of Inchy as to what is the true nature of 24)apparitions, but at other times I say as Socrates said when they told him a learned opinion about a 25)nymph of the 26)Illissus, “The common opinion is enough for me.” I believe when I am in the mood that all nature is full of people whom we cannot see, and that some of these are ugly or 27)grotesque, and some 28)wicked or foolish, but very many beautiful beyond any one we have ever seen, and that these are not far away when we are walking in pleasant and quiet places. Even when I was a boy I could never walk in a wood without feeling that at any moment I might find before me somebody or something I had long looked for without knowing what I looked for. And now I will at times explore every little 29)nook of some poor 30)coppice with almost anxious footsteps, so deep a hold has this imagination upon me. You too meet with a like imagination, doubtless, somewhere, wherever your ruling stars will have it, 31)Saturn driving you to the woods, or the Moon, it may be, to the edges of the sea. I will not of a certainty believe that there is nothing in the sunset, where our forefathers imagined the dead following their shepherd the sun, or nothing but some vague presence as little moving as nothing. If beauty is not a gateway out of the net we were taken in at our birth, it will not long be beauty, and we will find it better to sit at home by the fire and fatten a lazy body or to run 32)hither and thither in some foolish sport than to look at the finest show that light and shadow ever made among green leaves. I say to myself, when I am well out of that 33)thicket of argument, that they are surely there, the divine people, for only we who have neither simplicity nor wisdom have denied them, and the simple of all times and the wise men of ancient times have seen them and even spoken to them. They live out their passionate lives not far off, as I think, and we shall be among them when we die if we but keep our natures simple and passionate. May it not even be that death shall unite us to all 34)romance, and that some day we shall fight dragons among blue hills.
去年夏天，我只要一完成每天的工作，就习惯去一个空地儿多的树林散步。在那里，我经常遇见一位老农夫，跟他聊聊他的活计和这片树林。他一辈子都忙着修剪小路上的榆树、榛树、女贞树和角树枝条，对树林里的自然和超自然生物也有过不少思考。他听说过那只刺猬，说它“呼噜叫着，像个基督徒在发牢骚”，他相信那家伙偷苹果的办法是在一棵苹果树下打滚，直到每根刺儿上都穿了一个苹果。他也确信树林里的众多猫群有它们独有的语言——像某种古爱尔兰语。他认为，“猫都是大毒蛇变的，它们在世界发生的某次巨变中变成了猫。所以杀它们不容易，也正是因为这个原因，惹到它们，就危险了。要是你把猫惹怒了，它会抓你咬你，让你中毒，就像大毒蛇用牙施毒一样。”有时，他又认为它们变成了野猫，尾巴末端长爪子；不过野猫和松貂可不一样，后者自古就住在树林里。狐狸曾一度被驯服，像现在的家猫那样，但是它们后来逃走又变野了。他说到各种野生动物时，总是满心爱意，兴致盎然，不过，有时说起小时候的恶作剧——丢一束燃烧的稻草到刺猬身下，逼它们摊开身体——他的双眼会得意地放光。
我不确定他能否清楚地区分自然和超自然的生物。有一天，他告诉我，狐狸和猫都特别喜欢在夜幕降临之后，跑到“山寨”里。他经常从一个关于狐狸的故事，讲着讲着就跳到一个鬼故事去，语调几乎没有变化，就好像只是换到一个关于松貂的故事似的——现在已经很少见到这种动物了。许多年前，他在一个花园干活，有次人家吩咐他到园里的一间屋子里睡，看守阁楼上的苹果。整晚，他都听到头顶上的阁楼里传来叮叮当当摆弄碟子和刀叉的声音。不管怎么说，他还真有一次在树林里看到过神奇的一幕。他说，“有一阵，我在茵奇一带砍柴，一天早上8点，我在那儿看到一个拾坚果的女孩，她的棕色秀发下垂过肩，小脸清秀洁净，个儿高高，头上没戴什么，身上穿着非常简朴。她察觉我的到来，蜷缩身子，突然消失了，好像地面开了个口子把她吸走那样。我往她的方向一路走去，想找她，但是从那天起到现在，我再也没有见过她，再也没有。”
也有其他人在这魔幻森林里见过精灵鬼怪。有个工人告诉我们，他有个朋友在树林里一个叫珊瓦拉的地方看到过一些“东西”，那儿曾经是个古老的村庄，后来才荒废掉的。他说：“有天晚上，我在院子里和劳伦斯·曼根道别，我俩说过晚安，他便从珊瓦拉的小路走了，两个小时以后，他又跑了回来，让我从马厩里找根蜡烛点起来。他告诉我，他走进珊瓦拉时，有个只到他膝盖高而脑袋却有常人躯干那么大的小家伙走在他身边，引他离开小路，掉转头，最后带他走到石灰窑，就突然不见了。”
……
关于魂灵的真实本质是什么这个问题，我经常陷入比茵奇的小路还要错综复杂的思考。不过，有时我会像苏格拉底那样说。那时，有人向苏格拉底提到关于依利索斯河仙女的某些学术见解，他回答道：“对我来说，普遍的看法就够了。”感觉来了，我就会相信，自然界充满我们看不到的人，其中，或丑陋或怪异，或邪恶或愚笨，但也有很多拥有着我们从未见识过的超凡之美。当我们在静谧怡人的地方漫步时，这些美丽精灵离我们不过咫尺。即使当我还是个孩子的时候，每次走在树林里，都会觉得，我渴慕已久，却不知其所以然的什么人或者什么事物，随时会翩然出现在我面前。这种想象深深影响了我，到现在我还是会不时急切地跑到某片不怎么茂盛的矮树林里，彻底搜寻每个小角落。你的主星所指之处，你多半也有过这样一些幻想。也许，土星把你领进森林，月亮将你带向海边。我可不能断信落日中没有什么特别之物，我们的祖先曾想象过，死者就是在落日中，追随他们的牧人——太阳而去的；我也不能断言落日中只有一些模糊不清，如幻如无的东西。我们自出生便深陷网中，“美”一定是其出口，否则，“美”便不复为美。而且，倘非如此，我们想必只愿安坐家中，炉火暖身，任慵懒身躯日增赘肉，或者只知愚卤追逐，狼奔豕突，而不懂欣赏光与影在绿叶丛间上演的绝妙演出。从争论裹缠中走出来，我告诉自己，仙人们确确实实存在，只有我们这些既没有单纯心灵，也缺乏智慧的人才会否认这一点。而自古以来，纯真之人、古时智者皆对仙家神人有所见闻，甚至和它们有过交谈。我觉得，仙人们就在离我们不远的地方，充满激情地过着自己的日子，我们只要能让自己保持单纯本性、不失激情，死后就定将成为其中一员。但愿死亡把我们与一切传奇相联，但愿将来有一天，我们能在黛绿群山中与巨龙作战。
本文节选自其中的一篇，因篇幅所限，有删节。
Last summer, whenever I had finished my day’s work, I used to go wandering in certain 2)roomy woods, and there I would often meet an old countryman, and talk to him about his work and about the woods. He had spent all his life 3)lopping away the 4)witch elm and the 5)hazel and the 6)privet and the 7)hornbeam from the paths, and had thought much about the natural and supernatural creatures of the wood. He has heard the hedgehog—he calls him—“grunting like a Christian,” and is certain that he steals apples by rolling about under an apple tree until there is an apple sticking to every 8)quill. He is certain too that the cats, of whom there are many in the woods, have a language of their own—some kind of old Irish. He says, “Cats were 9)serpents, and they were made into cats at the time of some great change in the world. That is why they are hard to kill, and why it is dangerous to 10)meddle with them. If you annoy a cat it might claw or bite you in a way that would put poison in you, and that would be the serpent’s tooth.” Sometimes he thinks they change into wild cats, and then a nail grows on the end of their tails; but these wild cats are not the same as the 11)marten cats, who have been always in the woods. The foxes were once tame, as the cats are now, but they ran away and became wild. He talks of all wild creatures with what seems an affectionate interest, though at times his eyes will twinkle with pleasure as he remembers how he made hedgehogs unroll themselves when he was a boy, by putting 12)a wisp of burning straw under them.
I am not certain that he distinguishes between the natural and supernatural very clearly. He told me the other day that foxes and cats like to be in the “13)forths” after nightfall; and he will certainly pass from some story about a fox to a story about a spirit with less change of voice than when he is going to speak about a marten cat—a rare beast nowadays. Many years ago he used to work in the garden, and once they put him to sleep in a garden-house where there was a 14)loft full of apples, and all night he could hear people 15)rattling plates and knives and forks over his head in the loft. Once, at any rate, he has seen an 16)unearthly sight in the woods. He says, “One time I was out cutting timber over in Inchy, and about eight o’clock one morning when I got there I saw a girl picking nuts, with her hair hanging down over her shoulders, brown hair, and she had a good, clean face, and she was tall and nothing on her head, and her dress no way 17)gaudy but simple, and when she felt me coming she 18)gathered herself up and was gone as if the earth had swallowed her up. And I followed her and looked for her, but I never could see her again from that day to this, never again.”
Others too have seen spirits in the Enchanted Woods. A labourer told us of what a friend of his had seen in a part of the woods that is called Shanwalla, from some old village that was before the weed. He said, “One evening I parted from Lawrence Mangan in the yard, and he went away through the path in Shanwalla, 19)an’ 20)bid me goodnight. And two hours after, there he was back again in the yard, an’ bid me light a candle that was in the 21)stable. An’ he told me that when he got into Shanwalla, a little fellow about as high as his knee, but having a head as big as a man’s body, came beside him and led him out of the path an’ 22)round about, and at last it brought him to the 23)limekiln, and then it vanished and left him.”
…
I often entangle myself in argument more complicated than even those paths of Inchy as to what is the true nature of 24)apparitions, but at other times I say as Socrates said when they told him a learned opinion about a 25)nymph of the 26)Illissus, “The common opinion is enough for me.” I believe when I am in the mood that all nature is full of people whom we cannot see, and that some of these are ugly or 27)grotesque, and some 28)wicked or foolish, but very many beautiful beyond any one we have ever seen, and that these are not far away when we are walking in pleasant and quiet places. Even when I was a boy I could never walk in a wood without feeling that at any moment I might find before me somebody or something I had long looked for without knowing what I looked for. And now I will at times explore every little 29)nook of some poor 30)coppice with almost anxious footsteps, so deep a hold has this imagination upon me. You too meet with a like imagination, doubtless, somewhere, wherever your ruling stars will have it, 31)Saturn driving you to the woods, or the Moon, it may be, to the edges of the sea. I will not of a certainty believe that there is nothing in the sunset, where our forefathers imagined the dead following their shepherd the sun, or nothing but some vague presence as little moving as nothing. If beauty is not a gateway out of the net we were taken in at our birth, it will not long be beauty, and we will find it better to sit at home by the fire and fatten a lazy body or to run 32)hither and thither in some foolish sport than to look at the finest show that light and shadow ever made among green leaves. I say to myself, when I am well out of that 33)thicket of argument, that they are surely there, the divine people, for only we who have neither simplicity nor wisdom have denied them, and the simple of all times and the wise men of ancient times have seen them and even spoken to them. They live out their passionate lives not far off, as I think, and we shall be among them when we die if we but keep our natures simple and passionate. May it not even be that death shall unite us to all 34)romance, and that some day we shall fight dragons among blue hills.
去年夏天，我只要一完成每天的工作，就习惯去一个空地儿多的树林散步。在那里，我经常遇见一位老农夫，跟他聊聊他的活计和这片树林。他一辈子都忙着修剪小路上的榆树、榛树、女贞树和角树枝条，对树林里的自然和超自然生物也有过不少思考。他听说过那只刺猬，说它“呼噜叫着，像个基督徒在发牢骚”，他相信那家伙偷苹果的办法是在一棵苹果树下打滚，直到每根刺儿上都穿了一个苹果。他也确信树林里的众多猫群有它们独有的语言——像某种古爱尔兰语。他认为，“猫都是大毒蛇变的，它们在世界发生的某次巨变中变成了猫。所以杀它们不容易，也正是因为这个原因，惹到它们，就危险了。要是你把猫惹怒了，它会抓你咬你，让你中毒，就像大毒蛇用牙施毒一样。”有时，他又认为它们变成了野猫，尾巴末端长爪子；不过野猫和松貂可不一样，后者自古就住在树林里。狐狸曾一度被驯服，像现在的家猫那样，但是它们后来逃走又变野了。他说到各种野生动物时，总是满心爱意，兴致盎然，不过，有时说起小时候的恶作剧——丢一束燃烧的稻草到刺猬身下，逼它们摊开身体——他的双眼会得意地放光。
我不确定他能否清楚地区分自然和超自然的生物。有一天，他告诉我，狐狸和猫都特别喜欢在夜幕降临之后，跑到“山寨”里。他经常从一个关于狐狸的故事，讲着讲着就跳到一个鬼故事去，语调几乎没有变化，就好像只是换到一个关于松貂的故事似的——现在已经很少见到这种动物了。许多年前，他在一个花园干活，有次人家吩咐他到园里的一间屋子里睡，看守阁楼上的苹果。整晚，他都听到头顶上的阁楼里传来叮叮当当摆弄碟子和刀叉的声音。不管怎么说，他还真有一次在树林里看到过神奇的一幕。他说，“有一阵，我在茵奇一带砍柴，一天早上8点，我在那儿看到一个拾坚果的女孩，她的棕色秀发下垂过肩，小脸清秀洁净，个儿高高，头上没戴什么，身上穿着非常简朴。她察觉我的到来，蜷缩身子，突然消失了，好像地面开了个口子把她吸走那样。我往她的方向一路走去，想找她，但是从那天起到现在，我再也没有见过她，再也没有。”
也有其他人在这魔幻森林里见过精灵鬼怪。有个工人告诉我们，他有个朋友在树林里一个叫珊瓦拉的地方看到过一些“东西”，那儿曾经是个古老的村庄，后来才荒废掉的。他说：“有天晚上，我在院子里和劳伦斯·曼根道别，我俩说过晚安，他便从珊瓦拉的小路走了，两个小时以后，他又跑了回来，让我从马厩里找根蜡烛点起来。他告诉我，他走进珊瓦拉时，有个只到他膝盖高而脑袋却有常人躯干那么大的小家伙走在他身边，引他离开小路，掉转头，最后带他走到石灰窑，就突然不见了。”
……
关于魂灵的真实本质是什么这个问题，我经常陷入比茵奇的小路还要错综复杂的思考。不过，有时我会像苏格拉底那样说。那时，有人向苏格拉底提到关于依利索斯河仙女的某些学术见解，他回答道：“对我来说，普遍的看法就够了。”感觉来了，我就会相信，自然界充满我们看不到的人，其中，或丑陋或怪异，或邪恶或愚笨，但也有很多拥有着我们从未见识过的超凡之美。当我们在静谧怡人的地方漫步时，这些美丽精灵离我们不过咫尺。即使当我还是个孩子的时候，每次走在树林里，都会觉得，我渴慕已久，却不知其所以然的什么人或者什么事物，随时会翩然出现在我面前。这种想象深深影响了我，到现在我还是会不时急切地跑到某片不怎么茂盛的矮树林里，彻底搜寻每个小角落。你的主星所指之处，你多半也有过这样一些幻想。也许，土星把你领进森林，月亮将你带向海边。我可不能断信落日中没有什么特别之物，我们的祖先曾想象过，死者就是在落日中，追随他们的牧人——太阳而去的；我也不能断言落日中只有一些模糊不清，如幻如无的东西。我们自出生便深陷网中，“美”一定是其出口，否则，“美”便不复为美。而且，倘非如此，我们想必只愿安坐家中，炉火暖身，任慵懒身躯日增赘肉，或者只知愚卤追逐，狼奔豕突，而不懂欣赏光与影在绿叶丛间上演的绝妙演出。从争论裹缠中走出来，我告诉自己，仙人们确确实实存在，只有我们这些既没有单纯心灵，也缺乏智慧的人才会否认这一点。而自古以来，纯真之人、古时智者皆对仙家神人有所见闻，甚至和它们有过交谈。我觉得，仙人们就在离我们不远的地方，充满激情地过着自己的日子，我们只要能让自己保持单纯本性、不失激情，死后就定将成为其中一员。但愿死亡把我们与一切传奇相联，但愿将来有一天，我们能在黛绿群山中与巨龙作战。