[转载]《Sestina：一串儿时的梦想》英汉（原创）

Sestina：A Braid of Girlhood Dreams

by Petite (Fragrance) 

 
When I was a girl, a very little girl,

I wished to wear long hair in braid,

To have skirts sewn with golden thread,

Decorated and colorful with pearly beads,

Pretty and charming, like the Uygur maids…

That was the dream of the girlhood Petite.

The dream might stem from some fancy of petite,

Who lived simple and wore simple, as a poor girl.

Perhaps the fairy tales and the fictional maids

Also had a hand: long-haired beauties in braid,

Dancing cheerful in bright necklaces of beads...

But Petite looked a Cinderella, worn to a thread. 

Household chores were few at the time, except thread

The needles for grandma, who much loved Petite

For her bright eyes and rosy cheeks, and the beads

She could draw on paper, better than any other girl.

“Ignorance is a girl’s virtue,” Grandma would braid

Stories that “clever hands bring bless to all maids.” 

Grandma told many tales about the tragic maids

With poor manners or poor needlecraft. Her thread

Of thought lengthened and lengthened, to braid

Fiction and facts into a source, fearful for Petite,

Of unhappiness, that might spoil the life of a girl

And make her miserable, counting her lonely beads

Like the nuns, mute with a string of religious beads,

Secluded, separated and lonely, as lifelong maids,

Remaining poor and sullen, losing the love of a girl

For pretty things, without vigor, cherishing a thread

Of hope for an afterlife bliss… too remote for Petite

To pursue, and less enchanting than a visible braid.

Alas, I used to admire every creature with a kind of braid,

For which I’d been willing to exchange with all my beads.

You could never know the sorrow of a quiet girl like Petite

When not allowed to live as she dreamt like other maids…

Though such trifles aren’t worth the sentiment, my thread

Of thoughts drifted back in time when I was a little girl.

Where is the childhood Petite? Where are the maids?

Now I’m free to braid long hair and wear shiny beads,

Gold thread no more attracts, and no more is the dreamy girl.

Key words used in each stanza: girl, braid, thread, beads,  maids, Petite.  

Scheme: *abcdef / *faebdc / *cfdabe/ *ecbfad / *deacfb / *bdfeca / *fbc+eda

The six keywords occur in the six stanzas as follows:

stanza 1: 123456/ abcdef

stanza 2: 615243/ faebdc

stanza 3: 364125/ cfdabe

stanza 4: 532614/ ecbfad

stanza 5: 451362/ deacfb

stanza 6: 246531/ bdfeca

stanza 7：12/34/56;  14/25/36;   25/43/61;    65/24/31. 

The sestina (less commonly, though more correctly, sextain) is a wondrous strange beast, the brainchild of a twelfth-century Provençal troubador. It doesn't use rhyme; instead, it has six keywords essential to the poem's structure. The poem's 39 lines - six 6-line stanzas followed by a 3-line envoi or tornada - all end with one of the keywords; in the tornada, there are two keywords in each line, one of them at the end and the other somewhere in the middle. 

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一串儿时的梦想（Sestina循环诗）

宁馨儿/诗

在我小的时候，很小的时候，

曾希望能留起长发，编成长辫，

希望能有用金线缝制的秀裙，

装饰精致，坠有多彩的亮珠，

俏丽又迷人，像维族的少女……

这曾是宁馨儿小时候的梦想。

这样的梦想也许源于她的某个幻想，

那时候生活简单穿着朴素，因为没钱。

童话故事，以及小说里的少女，可能

也起些作用，留着长辫的丽人们，戴着

闪光的珠链，欢快地起舞，舞姿翩跹……

而宁馨儿却穿着破旧，像伙房里的丫环。

那时候的日常杂务并不算多，只是需要

为奶奶把缝衣针穿上线；那时的宁馨儿

双眼明亮，脸颊红润，擅长在纸上描画

珠子，画得比谁都好，很讨奶奶的喜欢。

奶奶常说“女子无才便是德”，还经常编织

故事，说明“女孩子手巧，福气就会相伴”。

奶奶能讲的故事很多，都是关于少女们

的悲剧，她们要么不知礼，要么不善针线。

她的思路越拉越长，绵延着，把事实

和虚构交支，裹缠，构成一个不幸之源，

（这让我惧怕）足以毁掉少女的一生，

让她们细数孤单的珠子，感到悲惨，

就像尼姑那样，默默的，手持信仰的念珠，

深居简出，与世隔绝，在孤独中度过残年。

她们贫穷且郁郁寡欢，不再热爱美的东西，

缺乏活力，只对极乐世界保有些许的希望……

这些，对宁馨儿而言，都过于的遥远，无法

追寻，其吸引力，还不及一只看得见的发辫。

唉，我曾经羡慕过每一个留有发辫的生灵，

曾宁愿舍弃自己所有的宝珠，将它们交换。

你永远不会理解一个安静女孩感到的悲哀，

现实不许她像别人那样，过梦想的生活……

虽然这些都微不足道，不值得伤感，但是思绪

却总是肆意地游弋，回到那时候，回到从前。

童年的宁馨儿，如今何在？女伴们又在何方？

现在的我，尽可以编起长发，佩戴闪光的珠链，

然而金线却不再吸引，那个爱做梦的女孩也已不见。

（翻译有些遗憾，没能保住英文诗每行末尾处特定的“关键词”，所以“忠实”肯定是谈不上了~~~ 所幸基本意思还在。仅供大家参考。）

关于“sestina”：“sestina”一词，通常译作“六节诗”、“六行诗”或者“六节六行诗”。但这些均无法准确地表达这种诗体的全部特征。或许，可以将其意译为“六节六行六字循序诗”。不少的诗学专著将其描述为一种最复杂的诗体。

据说sestina由12世纪法国普罗旺斯抒情诗人阿赫诺·达尼艾尔（Arnaut Daniel）首创。它的体式不只是体现于其篇幅的长度；更重要的是，每行的韵脚处，必须“复现”某六个特定的词语。例如，如果以字母“abcdef”来指代第一诗节六行诗句末尾处依次出现的六个词语，那么，第二诗节（以及其后的所有诗节）也只能用“abcdef”这六个词语；必须按照规定的顺序类推，不断地绵延而下，直至最后一节诗行。其要求十分严格，没有变通的余地。具体如下：

转自：http://1fragrance.blog.sohu.com/153131775.html  宁馨儿 在搜狐的老巢。