2013開學了!

2013開學了!

我讀湖濱散記 (4)

       開學了，時間也壓縮不少，2013練習曲停擺了，還是抽空整理植物週記，基本上是利用課餘、等車、開會....等瑣碎時間構思與塗鴉，夜深人靜時再整理與打字。總是夢想用文字的力量，和快速奔馳的社會抗衡，和茫然流逝的光陰拔河，生命裡留下一點點值得回味與回憶的時空。

壹

       上星期突發奇想，推行慢讀運動，每天細細讀一小段文字，讀三次。九月初，瀏覽梭羅《湖濱散記》，中英文版個別翻閱了一次，勾選幾段，慢慢品味。下面這段文字，讀了三次後，我還手抄一次，梭羅難得一見幽默----I tasted them out of compliment to Nature, though they were scarcely palatable----只為感謝大自然，梭羅吞下那難吃的野櫻桃，不過我猜梭羅真的是靠吃這些野果度日!

My house was on the side of a hill, immediately on the edge of the larger wood, in the midst of a young forest of pitch pines and hickories, and half a dozen rods from the pond, to which a narrow footpath led down the hill. In my front yard grew the strawberry, blackberry, and life-everlasting, johnswort and goldenrod, shrub oaks and sand cherry, blueberry and groundnut. Near the end of May, the sand cherry (Cerasus pumila) adorned the sides of the path with its delicate flowers arranged in umbels cylindrically about its short stems, which last, in the fall, weighed down with good-sized and handsome cherries, fell over in wreaths like rays on every side. I tasted them out of compliment to Nature, though they were scarcely palatable. The sumach (Rhus glabra) grew luxuriantly about the house, pushing up through the embankment which I had made, and growing five or six feet the first season. Its broad pinnate tropical leaf was pleasant though strange to look on. The large buds, suddenly pushing out late in the spring from dry sticks which had seemed to be dead, developed themselves as by magic into graceful green and tender boughs, an inch in diameter; and sometimes, as I sat at my window, so heedlessly did they grow and tax their weak joints, I heard a fresh and tender bough suddenly fall like a fan to the ground, when there was not a breath of air stirring, broken off by its own weight. In August, the large masses of berries, which, when in flower, had attracted many wild bees, gradually assumed their bright velvety crimson hue, and by their weight again bent down and broke the tender limbs. Henry David Thoreau, Walden

這小段提到十二種植物，兩個主角是:

 (1) the sand cherry (Cerasus pumila) 野櫻桃

(2) The sumach (Rhus glabra) 黃廬樹，鹽膚木

貳

       喜歡抄寫，又手抄一段梭羅《湖濱散記》，這是我很欣賞的一段，內容與結構都很棒。太陽照好人，也照壞人，照農田，也照雜草。但是要全然無私地，不計較成果，真的需要很大的智慧與慈悲心腸。

l  husbandman中古英文，指農夫。真正的農夫不會擔憂收成，捐棄收成的所有權--- relinquishing all claim to the produce of his fields----和大地共享成果。

l  woodchucks，土撥鼠，解釋:a stocky North American burrowing rodent, Marmota monax, that hibernates in the winter.

l  In his view the earth is all equally cultivated like a garden. Therefore we should receive the benefit of his light and heat with a corresponding trust and magnanimity. 世界，一座大花園，我們也該用無比的信任與寬宏大量，享受光與熱，但也和萬物分享。

l  麥穗與穀的字源就是: 存著希望------The ear of wheat (in Latin spica, obsoletely speca, from spe, hope) should not be the only hope of the husbandman; its kernel or grain (granum from gerendo, bearing) is not all that it bears. 看下面的小麥照片，科博館拍攝，眼尖的人一定發現那無所不在的監視器，這就是現代社會，焦慮，不安，害怕.....，因為希望已經被鎖住了!

l  誰才是the principal cultivator? 老天爺!

We are wont to forget that the sun looks on our cultivated fields and on the prairies and forests without distinction. They all reflect and absorb his rays alike, and the former make but a small part of the glorious picture which he beholds in his daily course. In his view the earth is all equally cultivated like a garden. Therefore we should receive the benefit of his light and heat with a corresponding trust and magnanimity. What though I value the seed of these beans, and harvest that in the fall of the year? This broad field which I have looked at so long looks not to me as the principal cultivator, but away from me to influences more genial to it, which water and make it green. These beans have results which are not harvested by me. Do they not grow for woodchucks partly? The ear of wheat (in Latin spica, obsoletely speca, from spe, hope) should not be the only hope of the husbandman; its kernel or grain (granum from gerendo, bearing) is not all that it bears. How, then, can our harvest fail? Shall I not rejoice also at the abundance of the weeds whose seeds are the granary of the birds? It matters little comparatively whether the fields fill the farmer's barns. The true husbandman will cease from anxiety, as the squirrels manifest no concern whether the woods will bear chestnuts this year or not, and finish his labor with every day, relinquishing all claim to the produce of his fields, and sacrificing in his mind not only his first but his last fruits also. Thoreau, "The Bean-Field," Walden

肆

  清晨，欣喜接受今天新的生命--- Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.­­­ 我喜歡cheerful invitation這詞，每個新的日子發給我們的請帖，邀請我們一塊兒分享這最單純美好的時時刻刻。中國人則說「茍日新、日日新、又日新」，英文翻譯也挺妙的，"renew thyself completely each day"，例如借書，期限到了，可以續借，就是renew，妙! 每天都得重新續借一下!

Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature hersealf. I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks. I got up early and bathed in the pond; that was a religious exercise, and one of the best things which I did. They say that characters were engraven on the bathing tub of King Tchingthang to this effect: "Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again." I can understand that. Morning brings back the heroic ages. I was as much affected by the faint hum of a mosquito making its invisible and unimaginable tour through my apartment at earliest dawn, when I was sitting with door and windows open, as I could be by any trumpet that ever sang of fame. It was Homer's requiem; itself an Iliad and Odyssey in the air, singing its own wrath and wanderings. There was something cosmical about it; a standing advertisement, till forbidden, of the everlasting vigor and fertility of the world. The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour. Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night. Thoreau, " Where I Lived, and What I Lived For," Walden

       為何是一曲荷馬的安魂曲?---- It was Homer's requiem; itself an Iliad and Odyssey in the air, singing its own wrath and wanderings. There was something cosmical about it; a standing advertisement, till forbidden, of the everlasting vigor and fertility of the world.----微風中，走回古希臘，走回英雄時期，日出，就像翻開續借的書，自自然然地重新演繹古代史詩，Achilles的氣慨與Odysseus的奇幻之旅，壯闊的宇宙，活力與生命力。

       我再三閱讀這段文字，甦醒。

圖片: 豆梨

伍

  這段文字，一讀，驚魂未定，二讀，震撼不已，三讀，大笑。

       一讀，發現自個兒原來是渾渾噩噩度日---- All memorable events, I should say, transpire in morning time and in a morning atmosphere. The Vedas say, "All intelligences awake with the morning." ----當我勉強打開眼睛，心智都還處於睡眠狀態，真是浪費美好曙光!讀到 Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep. 方知洗滌生命，應從克服瞌睡蟲開始著手!

       二讀，Little is to be expected of that day...生命沒望，如果我們每天早上是被鬧鐘叫醒或是被家人叫醒! 震撼! 原來，我的每一天開場宣告這日子無望! 那麼怎樣的人生才有希望? 是被內心深處生命力與感動喚醒，是被自身擁有的天分(Genius)喚醒，是被天籟(the undulations of celestial music)喚醒，多麼美好啊!

       為何三讀之餘，我開懷大笑? 因為，清晨是個比喻，睡與醒世個比喻，原來繞了一圈，梭羅是向世界宣告: 眾人皆睡， 唯我獨醒!

Little is to be expected of that day, if it can be called a day, to which we are not awakened by our Genius, but by the mechanical nudgings of some servitor, are not awakened by our own newly acquired force and aspirations from within, accompanied by the undulations of celestial music, instead of factory bells, and a fragrance filling the air—to a higher life than we fell asleep from; and thus the darkness bear its fruit, and prove itself to be good, no less than the light. That man who does not believe that each day contains an earlier, more sacred, and auroral hour than he has yet profaned, has despaired of life, and is pursuing a descending and darkening way. After a partial cessation of his sensuous life, the soul of man, or its organs rather, are reinvigorated each day, and his Genius tries again what noble life it can make. All memorable events, I should say, transpire in morning time and in a morning atmosphere. The Vedas say, "All intelligences awake with the morning." Poetry and art, and the fairest and most memorable of the actions of men, date from such an hour. All poets and heroes, like Memnon, are the children of Aurora, and emit their music at sunrise. To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not what the clocks say or the attitudes and labors of men. Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep. Why is it that men give so poor an account of their day if they have not been slumbering? They are not such poor calculators. If they had not been overcome with drowsiness, they would have performed something. The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face? Thoreau, " Where I Lived, and What I Lived For," Walden