2020年经济学人 爱尔兰女诗人伊万·博兰德(3)

Shockingly, a wife who believed "I was not myself, myself" in her everyday dutifulness felt herself remade when her husband, coming home tight, split her lip and knuckled¹ her neck "to its proper angle"; and was grateful for his remodelling². Yet the all-too-ordinary often slipped into something else. She was too deeply read in the myths and epics³ of Ireland for it to be otherwise. The life that was lived in a brick house could still have a visionary quality.

令人震惊的是，一个尽着日常责任，并认为“这不是真正的我”的妻子，在丈夫准点回家，掰开她的双唇，用手将她的脖子按到“合适的角度”后，感觉自己被重塑了，并且对他的改造感到感激。但是这些过于平常的事经常会发生变化。她对爱尔兰的神话和史诗太了解了，以致于无法接受。在砖房中的生活里可能仍然会产生远见卓识。

In "Night Feed", she noticed not only the rosy⁴ zipped sleeper⁵, the hard suckling, the silt⁶ of milk left in the bottle, but the movements of earth and stars, and the "long fall from grace" as the feed ended. The stopping of the tumble-dryer, like death, began "to bury/The room in white spaces." An old florin, brushed on a shelf, turned into a silver salmon⁷. That everyday life was also not remote from history. But she preferred to call it The Past: a place of shadows, fragments, defeats, rather than heroics.

在《夜间喂食》中，她不仅注意到了玫瑰色的拉链枕木，坚实的吸吮，瓶中残留的牛奶淤泥，还有地球和星星的运动，还有在喂食结束后感到的“长时间的失宠”。烘干机的停止就像死亡一般，开始将“房间埋葬在白色的空间内”。刷洗过在架子上的二先令银币变成了银色的鲑鱼。日常的生活也并非远离历史。但是她更喜欢叫它“过去”：一个充满阴影，碎片，失败，而不是英雄的地方。

The Troubles appeared, through an ancient television set, as "grey and greyer tears" and "moonlight-coloured funerals". Emigration to America was a woman in a gansy-coat on the deck of the Mary Belle⁸, holding her half-dead baby to her. In "Quarantine" the worst year of the famine, 1847, was encapsulated in a couple found frozen, he still carrying her, holding her feet against his breastbone to try to warm them.

通过一个古老的电视机，引出了北爱尔兰暴力问题，有“比灰色更灰的眼泪”，还有“月色葬礼”。“移民到美国”讲的是一名穿着在甲板上的穿着羊毛毛衣的女人，她抱着自己的半死婴儿。在《检疫》中饥荒最严重的一年，1847年，一对夫妇被冻死。他仍然抱着她，把她的脚放在自己的胸骨上，试图温暖它们。

1 knuckled   

v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的过去式和过去分词 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝

参考例句：

• He knuckled me in the chest. 他用指关节敲击我的胸部。 来自辞典例句
• Mr. Cruncher knuckled his forehead, as Sydney Carton and the spy returned from the dark room. 克朗彻先生用指关节敲敲自己的前额，这时西德尼 - 卡尔顿和密探从黑屋出来了。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

2 remodelling   

v.改变…的结构[形状]( remodel的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• That shabby street needs remodelling. 那条陋街需要重建。 来自辞典例句
• Function-forming and remodelling collagen, reticular and elastic fibres and the ground substances. 合成蛋白质，构成疏松结缔组织的纤维和基质成分。 来自互联网

3 epics   

n.叙事诗( epic的名词复数 )；壮举；惊人之举；史诗般的电影（或书籍）

参考例句：

• one of the great Hindu epics 伟大的印度教史诗之一
• Homer Iliad and Milton's Paradise Lost are epics. 荷马的《伊利亚特》和弥尔顿的《失乐园》是史诗。 来自互联网

4 rosy   

adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的

参考例句：

• She got a new job and her life looks rosy.她找到一份新工作，生活看上去很美好。
• She always takes a rosy view of life.她总是对生活持乐观态度。

5 sleeper   

n.睡眠者，卧车，卧铺

参考例句：

• I usually go up to London on the sleeper. 我一般都乘卧车去伦敦。
• But first he explained that he was a very heavy sleeper. 但首先他解释说自己睡觉很沉。

6 silt   

n.淤泥，淤沙，粉砂层，泥沙层；vt.使淤塞；vi.被淤塞

参考例句：

• The lake was almost solid with silt and vegetation.湖里几乎快被淤泥和植物填满了。
• During the annual floods the river deposits its silt on the fields.每年河水泛滥时都会在田野上沉积一层淤泥。

7 salmon   

n.鲑，大马哈鱼，橙红色的

参考例句：

• We saw a salmon jumping in the waterfall there.我们看见一条大马哈鱼在那边瀑布中跳跃。
• Do you have any fresh salmon in at the moment?现在有新鲜大马哈鱼卖吗？

8 belle   

n.靓女

参考例句：

• She was the belle of her Sunday School class.在主日学校她是她们班的班花。
• She was the belle of the ball.她是那个舞会中的美女。