Shakespeare's Sonnets

When forty winters besiege your beauty,
Dig deep trenches in your beautiful garden,
Your youthful attire is so envied.
It will become a tattered piece of rags, no one should look at it:
If people ask you where your beauty lies,
Where are the treasures of your youth,
You said, "In my sunken eyes,"
It is a shame of greed and a useless praise.
The use of your beauty will be more praiseworthy,
If you can say, "I, the sweet child, will settle my account and forgive my old age,"
Prove that his beauty is inherited from your bloodline!
This will rejuvenate you in your old age,
And rekindle the chill of your blood.
- William Shakespeare uses this genre to give us a treasure trove of gentle music and vivid images, in which he accomplishes in a subjective way what he accomplished in his drama in an objective way, holding up a mirror to nature and people, allowing virtue and passion to recognize their own faces: letting time reflect his own shape and imprint; time, the charming glory and decaying melancholy it brings... What else can the translator say about such poems except to stop writing and sigh frequently?
——Liang Zongdai

2020-01-01

人民文学出版社

176

9787020153848