閱讀筆記: 再會吧! 2013暑假

再會吧! 2013暑假

我讀湖濱散記 (3)

壹

圖: 大葉桉

ET Bear 植物語: 把握暑假尾端，出遊，抓住餘暉，溫暖下一個冬天。

暑假快結束了，知道生命又流逝一部分，不悲，但，我了解每一個「現在」瞬間就消失。說來奇怪，這暑假面對好幾個噩耗，幾個公眾人物驟逝，鄰居與友人突然離開人世，一點哀傷。我很小就面對至親的幾位家人離世，人生無常的感受總是特別深，但是，2013年暑假收到訃聞的密度太高，督促我學一門新的功課：把此時此刻都當作最後一課，學習，感恩，喜樂。

夕陽下，我抬頭仰望大葉桉頂端的花開，默默許個小願望，這暑假就剩七天了，阿宅應該走出門，出遊。

貳

圖: 百合花

這星期得參加很多會議，生活樂趣則是看古今中外的百合花，昨天先整理聖母百合，希望也收集一些台灣的品種，這一朵是野生的百合花，我是遠距拍的，約莫200-300公尺之外。比起遙望古代克里特島的百合，這算很近。感謝網路世界，讓我可以一覽萬花。

還沒親眼看過鹿子百合，近來Facebook好友友介紹，一睹「東亞最美麗的百合花」的照片，也網路世界的奇蹟與美好:

鹿子百合（學名：Lilium speciosum），又名美麗百合、藥百合、艷紅百合、洋紅百合、七夕百合、土用百合，為百合科百合屬的植物，種加詞speciosum意為「美麗的」，分布於日本的九州和四國、台灣島和中國大陸南部[1]，由於其花朵布滿艷麗的斑點，猶如鹿紋而得名。台灣分布有布滿紅艷斑點的變種艷紅鹿子百合（Lilium speciousm var. gloriosoides），是台灣的特有種，也是台灣國立自然科學博物館的館花，被譽為「東亞最美麗的百合花」。鱗莖有滋養、強壯身體、利尿、止咳、解熱、消炎的功能。鹿子百合在日本的花語是莊嚴、慈悲深情。

資料來源: http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%B9%BF%E5%AD%90%E7%99%BE%E5%90%88

叁

走一趟墾丁，一會兒大太陽，一會兒下雨，一會兒颳風，看來，躲到墾丁，也躲不掉風風雨雨。陌生的宇宙，不免害怕，身心調節也出點狀況，我不愛冒險，寧可同樣的路走千回萬回，也不太愛改變。縱然出門總有一些斬獲，但是，代價太高，非我所願。此外，來去匆匆，走馬看花，似乎虛晃一招，可惜。若要認識一區域的植物生態，要長期觀察與學習，像我這般，能學到的，著實有限。

圖: 墾丁

還是回家好，當阿宅的樂趣很多，靜思與閱讀，梭羅說道我的心聲----

My residence was more favorable, not only to thought, but to serious reading, than a university; and though I was beyond the range of the ordinary circulating library, I had more than ever come within the influence of those books which circulate round the world, whose sentences were first written on bark, and are now merely copied from time to time on to linen paper. Says the poet Mîr Camar Uddîn Mast, "Being seated, to run through the region of the spiritual world; I have had this advantage in books. To be intoxicated by a single glass of wine; I have experienced this pleasure when I have drunk the liquor of the esoteric doctrines." I kept Homer's Iliad on my table through the summer, though I looked at his page only now and then. Incessant labor with my hands, at first, for I had my house to finish and my beans to hoe at the same time, made more study impossible. Yet I sustained myself by the prospect of such reading in future. I read one or two shallow books of travel in the intervals of my work, till that employment made me ashamed of myself, and I asked where it was then that I lived. Henry David Thoreau, " Reading," Walden.

「快閃」的世代，是不是可以停一下? 每天滑過的文字與圖片，飄，飄，飄，大家都越來越盲，因為根本看不見! 為解救眼盲，心盲，與文盲，我提倡新閱讀運動，每天只選讀一小段，從頭到尾「讀三次」，視力矯正，也矯正滑鼠快滑症，一學期後檢查療效!

此外，我也不在貪婪地想認識萬種植物，一天只學習兩三種，慢慢地看，仔細端詳，蔓荊是這次在墾丁發現的美麗花朵，一串串小花慢慢地拉開，遍布「風吹沙」，別名有:海埔姜、蔓荊實、蔓荊子、荊子、白埔姜、山埔姜、萬荊子(浙江)、海埔姜、埔姜仔、埔荊茶、濱樁、小葡萄、單葉蔓荊、白背蔓荊。也入藥，因我不懂植物用藥，不宜多說。

圖: 蔓荊

肆

No wonder that Alexander carried the Iliad with him on his expeditions in a precious casket. A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips;—not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself. The symbol of an ancient man's thought becomes a modern man's speech. Two thousand summers have imparted to the monuments of Grecian literature, as to her marbles, only a maturer golden and autumnal tint, for they have carried their own serene and celestial atmosphere into all lands to protect them against the corrosion of time. Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They have no cause of their own to plead, but while they enlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will not refuse them. Their authors are a natural and irresistible aristocracy in every society, and, more than kings or emperors, exert an influence on mankind. When the illiterate and perhaps scornful trader has earned by enterprise and industry his coveted leisure and independence, and is admitted to the circles of wealth and fashion, he turns inevitably at last to those still higher but yet inaccessible circles of intellect and genius, and is sensible only of the imperfection of his culture and the vanity and insufficiency of all his riches, and further proves his good sense by the pains which he takes to secure for his children that intellectual culture whose want he so keenly feels; and thus it is that he becomes the founder of a family.

Henry David Thoreau, " Reading," Walden.

讀書，到底在讀甚麼? 又該讀甚麼?我選擇老掉牙的西方古典文學，一不小心也掉入「啃老族」，不過我是依賴啃古書過活的，這般命運，只好大力提倡與宣傳荷馬史詩、希伯來聖經、古羅馬文學等等。讀古典文學有幾個好處：第一，幾千年來，累積讀者眾多，例如亞歷山大大帝，也是我們共同的讀者；第二，珍貴的資產 (A written word is the choicest of relics.)；第三，是休閒，是優遊人生。很多人辛苦一輩子，就是要賺一個「好日子」，有朝一日錢夠了，才發現原來好日子，就是工作閒暇之餘，打開荷馬史詩，神遊當中。

看到這花爬在岩石上，心動，所以趴在地上拍照，我是往下俯視，所以看花的角度很特別。

當時，我並不知道這是甚麼，只覺得特別與感動，那種心情，就是我第一次閱讀荷馬史詩希臘文原典的感覺，再次坦白，很多處我都沒讀通喔! 朦朦朧朧地閱讀，也是一種享受，陶淵明說的，「好讀書，不求甚解…」

圖: 小葉栝根

伍

The best books are not read even by those who are called good readers. What does our Concord culture amount to? There is in this town, with a very few exceptions, no taste for the best or for very good books even in English literature, whose words all can read and spell. Even the college-bred and so-called liberally educated men here and elsewhere have really little or no acquaintance with the English classics; and as for the recorded wisdom of mankind, the ancient classics and Bibles, which are accessible to all who will know of them, there are the feeblest efforts anywhere made to become acquainted with them. I know a woodchopper, of middle age, who takes a French paper, not for news as he says, for he is above that, but to "keep himself in practice," he being a Canadian by birth; and when I ask him what he considers the best thing he can do in this world, he says, beside this, to keep up and add to his English. This is about as much as the college-bred generally do or aspire to do, and they take an English paper for the purpose. One who has just come from reading perhaps one of the best English books will find how many with whom he can converse about it? Or suppose he comes from reading a Greek or Latin classic in the original, whose praises are familiar even to the so-called illiterate; he will find nobody at all to speak to, but must keep silence about it. Indeed, there is hardly the professor in our colleges, who, if he has mastered the difficulties of the language, has proportionally mastered the difficulties of the wit and poetry of a Greek poet, and has any sympathy to impart to the alert and heroic reader; and as for the sacred Scriptures, or Bibles of mankind, who in this town can tell me even their titles? Most men do not know that any nation but the Hebrews have had a scripture. A man, any man, will go considerably out of his way to pick up a silver dollar; but here are golden words, which the wisest men of antiquity have uttered, and whose worth the wise of every succeeding age have assured us of;—and yet we learn to read only as far as Easy Reading, the primers and class-books, and when we leave school, the "Little Reading," and story-books, which are for boys and beginners; and our reading, our conversation and thinking, are all on a very low level, worthy only of pygmies and manikins.

Henry David Thoreau, " Reading," Walden.

其實梭羅這段文字很酸，一方面嘲笑一般的凡夫俗子，一方面嘲笑大學象牙塔裡的教授。但語重心長，因為推動經典閱讀本來就很難，雖說書中自有黃金書，但是，說起讀書，若無興趣，也是枉然。因為愛讀書，所以常讀書，自然而然，就像我愛看植物，走到那兒，都看看植物。

在平凡無奇中，體會奇蹟，這就是美好。在海濱，有一大片這種植物，走過的旅行千萬，但駐足片刻欣賞的應該少之又少，因為未知，所以好奇，所以多看幾眼，所以被那網狀花序深深吸引，這就是無法抵擋的學習熱情! 後來，也問到這是臭娘子(Premna serratifolia)，是墾丁名產喔!