The Sound of Silence 寂静之声

The Sound of Silence

寂静之声
云天译


Hello darkness, my old friend,
I've come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.

哈罗黑暗，老伙伴
我又来找你倾谈
因为幻觉正悄悄浮起
在我梦中播下种子
那幻觉就种在我脑海里
仍栖息
在那寂静之声里

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone,
'Neath the halo of a street lamp,
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence.

我梦中碾转独游荡
走过鹅卵石窄巷 
街灯投下昏黄光圈
我竖起衣领来抵御风寒
这时一道霓虹灯刺到我的眼睛
划破夜空
触碰这寂静之声

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence.

那么眩目的霓虹灯
我看见上万个身影
人们交谈却不出声
人们侧耳却不倾听
人们谱写歌曲却不歌唱
谁敢狂妄
打破这寂静之声

"Fools," said I, "You do not know –
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you.
Take my arms that I might reach you."
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

"傻瓜" 我说， "你不懂
寂静滋生如癌症
聆听我教导的话语
握住我伸出的双臂"
但我的话如落雨无声
回荡在寂静的深井

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming.
And the sign said, The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sound of silence.

人们造霓虹上帝
对着它祈祷行礼
灯牌上的霓虹字
闪烁着警告的戒语
告诉世人，先知的那些警言
就刻在地铁墙上
和公寓走廊
在寂静之声里低语


译于 4/14/2014
改译 6/16/2015

【注】
“哈罗”借用徐飞歌译。


【译后】
 这是电影《The Graduate 毕业生》中的第一首歌，Benjamin 一脸茫然走在机场的传送带上。太熟悉的歌，但只记得部分歌词。故译之而知之。


【云天晕语】

与徐飞对话：
http://writewww.com/topic.php?tkey=1434148734&tpno=1&tpc=1&newAtop=1&page_no=1&to_rid=2440&theme_id=2132

不只凑韵还要凑字数（约等于音节数）。
当然如果原文不韵我乐得偷懒。作为歌曲，旋律终归第一。旋律平平，歌词免读。

关于这首歌，很多解读。

Paul Simon自己说，歌词与他的大学阅读有关，
"It's a young lyric, but not bad for a 21-year-old. It's not a sophisticated thought, but a thought that I gathered from some college reading material or something."

黑塞的《荒原狼》即为推测之一。除了徐飞提到的那段文字，书中接下来还提到霓虹灯，当然字牌上写的字是”魔术剧院Magic Theater", 而不是先知之类的。有人说字牌内容借鉴了《圣经》内容。 也或许受到 The Catcher in the Rye ， 《异乡人》，《在路上》，《追忆似水年华》的影响？ 《荒原狼》、《追忆似水年华》这样自言自语梦境般的意识流小说似乎可以为诗人提供不少灵感。 

歌词到底什么意思，莫衷一是。
"The song's origin and basis remains unclear, with multiple answers coming forward over the years."--wiki
猜测或与Kennedy 被刺事件, social injustice, drug 等有关联，更有人言之凿凿，说与Paul Simon的bipolar 有关。

Garfunkel 自己归结这首歌的意思为在情感沟通上的能力欠缺， "the inability of people to communicate with each other, not particularly internationally but especially emotionally, so what you see around you are people unable to love each other."

歌词每一节意思都不同，似乎缺乏内在关联，因而导致N多种猜测/解读。这的确很有意思。 
Simon and Garfunkel 也实在聪明，不直接说出葵花宝典的名称，更不直接为歌迷解惑。 
若歌词明明白白，缺乏多重指向，那么这首歌的迷人魅力大概也就half gone了。
不管如何，一个21岁的青年能谱写出这样的歌曲，确乎非常天才。

而对于我们译者，“信”囿于我们各自的解读。对于我，纯属玩文字, just for the sake of fun.

回到下面这几句歌词，这也是最让人迷惑的，因为作者的非凡“造句”功力。
徐飞关于“霓虹灯”的解读，我在网上也读到过，还有许多别种解读。

“People talking without speaking/People hearing without listening”
这两句我翻来覆去不知改过多少遍。我个人倾向于“言而无声/言而无物，听而不闻/充耳不闻”这样的解读。
one of my tries, final:

People talking without speaking 人们交谈却不出声
People hearing without listening人们侧耳却不倾听
People writing songs that voices never share 人们谱写歌曲却不歌唱 

”People talking without speaking” 这句, 有人解读为用心交谈，所以不必出声，有意思。真正八仙过海。

time to call it quits. i'm done with it, for now. 

多谢徐飞分享！ 端午快乐！ 



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound_of_Silence

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=796