题图 / Logan White

十四行诗 第118首

像是为要使我们的胃口大开，
我们把辛辣的佐料送上舌端；
又像预防潜伏的疾病到来，
我们服泻药，泻得委顿不堪；
同样的，饱饫了你永不变腻的温柔，
我就把苦汁当做了我的食粮；
过度的幸福了，在不需要的时候，
我觉得也正不妨小病一场。
于是，情场上的手段，原想预防
未发生的毛病，惹出了真正的病症，
把健康之躯变成了医疗的对象，
由于健康太多，求疾病来治病；
但是从此我学到一项真的教训，
药能毒杀一个这样饱饫你的人。

作者 / [英] 莎士比亚
翻译 / 梁实秋

Sonnet 118

Like as to make our appetites more keen
With eager compounds we our palate urge,
As to prevent our maladies unseen
We sicken to shun sickness when we purge:
Even so, being full of your ne’er-cloying sweetness,
To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding,
And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness
To be diseased ere that there was true needing.
Thus policy in love,t’anticipate
The ills that were not, grew to faults assured,
And brought to medicine a healthful state
Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cured.
But thence I learn, and find the lesson true,
Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.

Shakespeare

荐诗 / 刘宛妮
2020/04/23

第2602夜