第 1 节
作者:雨来不躲      更新:2021-03-08 19:10      字数:3056
  FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
  THE PHOENIX BIRD
  by Hans Christian Andersen
  IN the Garden of Paradise; beneath the Tree of Knowledge;
  bloomed a rose bush。 Here; in the first rose; a bird was born。 His
  flight was like the flashing of light; his plumage was beauteous;
  and his song ravishing。 But when Eve plucked the fruit of the tree
  of knowledge of good and evil; when she and Adam were driven from
  Paradise; there fell from the flaming sword of the cherub a spark into
  the nest of the bird; which blazed up forthwith。 The bird perished
  in the flames; but from the red egg in the nest there fluttered
  aloft a new one… the one solitary Phoenix bird。 The fable tells that
  he dwells in Arabia; and that every hundred years; he burns himself to
  death in his nest; but each time a new Phoenix; the only one in the
  world; rises up from the red egg。
  The bird flutters round us; swift as light; beauteous in color;
  charming in song。 When a mother sits by her infant's cradle; he stands
  on the pillow; and; with his wings; forms a glory around the
  infant's head。 He flies through the chamber of content; and brings
  sunshine into it; and the violets on the humble table smell doubly
  sweet。
  But the Phoenix is not the bird of Arabia alone。 He wings his
  way in the glimmer of the Northern Lights over the plains of
  Lapland; and hops among the yellow flowers in the short Greenland
  summer。 Beneath the copper mountains of Fablun; and England's coal
  mines; he flies; in the shape of a dusty moth; over the hymnbook
  that rests on the knees of the pious miner。 On a lotus leaf he
  floats down the sacred waters of the Ganges; and the eye of the Hindoo
  maid gleams bright when she beholds him。
  The Phoenix bird; dost thou not know him? The Bird of Paradise;
  the holy swan of song! On the car of Thespis he sat in the guise of
  a chattering raven; and flapped his black wings; smeared with the lees
  of wine; over the sounding harp of Iceland swept the swan's red
  beak; on Shakspeare's shoulder he sat in the guise of Odin's raven;
  and whispered in the poet's ear 〃Immortality!〃 and at the minstrels'
  feast he fluttered through the halls of the Wartburg。
  The Phoenix bird; dost thou not know him? He sang to thee the
  Marseillaise; and thou kissedst the pen that fell from his wing; he
  came in the radiance of Paradise; and perchance thou didst turn away
  from him towards the sparrow who sat with tinsel on his wings。
  The Bird of Paradise… renewed each century… born in flame;
  ending in flame! Thy picture; in a golden frame; hangs in the halls of
  the rich; but thou thyself often fliest around; lonely and
  disregarded; a myth… 〃The Phoenix of Arabia。〃
  In Paradise; when thou wert born in the first rose; beneath the
  Tree of Knowledge; thou receivedst a kiss; and thy right name was
  given thee… thy name; Poetry。
  THE END
  。