Sweet September
甜美的九月

（选自《英语世界》2015年第9期）

文/哈尔•白兰德 译/唐毅
By Hal Borland

September is more than a month, really; it is a season, an achievement in itself. It begins with August’s leftovers and it ends with October’s preparations, but along the way it achieves special satisfactions. After summer’s heat and haste, the year consolidates itself. Deliberate September—in its own time and tempo—begins to sum up another summer.
九月绝不仅仅是一个月份，它是一个季节，一个收获的季节。九月初始于八月的余音，终结于十月的繁忙。一路走来，它怡然自得，收获满满。经过了夏季的炎热和躁动，一年开始沉静下来，为来年的繁荣做准备。九月，踏着自己的节拍，从容地宣告又一个夏季的结束。

With September comes a sense of autumn. It creeps in on a misty dawn and vanishes in the hot afternoon. It tiptoes through the treetops, rouging a few leaves, then rides a tuft of thistledown across the valley and away. It sits on a hilltop and hoots like an October owl in the dusk. It plays tag with the wind. September is a changeling busy as a squirrel in a hickory tree, idle as a languid brook. It is summer’s ripeness and richness fulfilled.
九月给我们带来了丝丝的秋意。它在薄雾朦胧的清晨无声无息地潜入，又在阳光和煦的午后悄然消失了踪影。它踮起脚尖，轻手轻脚地掠过树顶，顺手抹红了几片叶子，又踏着一丛蓟花冠毛，越过峡谷后飘然而去。它时而坐在山巅，啾啾犹如十月黄昏中啼叫的猫头鹰，时而又和风儿追逐玩耍。九月又是变化无常的。它一会儿繁忙如同山核桃树上的小松鼠，一会儿又慵懒有如缓缓流淌的小溪。夏季的成熟与丰饶成就了甜美的九月。

Some of the rarest days of the year come in the September season—days when it is comfortably cold but pulsing with life, when the sky is clear and clean, the air crisp, the wind free of dust. Meadows still smell of hay and the sweetness of cut grass. September flowers are less varied than those of May but so abundant that they make September another flowery month. Goldenrod comes by mid-August, but rises to a peak of golden abundance in early September. Late thistles make spectacular purple accents. And asters blossom everywhere, along the roadsides, in meadows, on the hilltops, even in city lots, raging in color from pure white through all degrees of lavender to the royal New England purple.
一年中难得的几天好时光就在九月到来。九月天气凉爽宜人，万物生机勃勃。天空清澈明澄，空气清冽，纤尘不染。草地上飘散着干草味和新割下的草的甜甜的气息。九月的花儿虽不如五月的花儿那样百花争艳，但烂漫多姿的花儿成就九月成为繁花似锦的又一个花季。金菊八月中旬含苞，九月初即绽放。晚蓟花开，紫色一片，蔚为壮观。紫菀怒放，道路边，草地上，山顶上，甚或是都市的空地上，处处可觅得芳踪。紫色千姿百态，素白，淡紫，深紫，丰富的色彩，时而平易如薰衣草，时而高贵如皇室紫，斑斓炫丽。

We think of spring as the miracle time, when opening bud and new leaf proclaim the persistence of life. But September is when the abiding wonder makes itself known in a subtler way. Now growth comes to annual fruition, and preparations are completed for another year, another generation. The acorn ripens and the hickory nut matures. The plant commits its future to the seed and the root. The insect stows tomorrow in the egg and the pupa. The surge is almost over and life begins to relax.
春季蓓蕾绽放，新叶吐绿，生机盎然。春天是一个昭示生命奇迹的季节，而秋天则以其婉约之姿展示这个奇迹。九月，生长，成熟，不仅一年的硕果尽在于此，它又为来年、新生的生命做好了准备。橡果熟了，胡桃老了。植物将未来托付给种子和根茎，昆虫将明天托付给卵蛹。勃发的生命脉动接近尾声，开始歇息。

The green prime is passing. The trees begin to proclaim the change. Soon the leaves will be discarded, the grass will sere. But the miracle of life persists, the mysterious germ of growth and renewal that is the seed itself.
绿色葱笼即将逝去，叶落，草枯。季节的更替在树木的身上一览无余。可是，生命的奇迹生生不息，成长、复生的生命就孕育在神秘的粒粒种籽中。

This is the season of the harvest moon. With reasonably clear skies it will be a moonlit week, for the harvest moon is not hasty; it comes early and stays late. There was a time when the busy farmer could return to the fields after supper and continue his harvest by moonlight. There’s still harvesting to be done, but much of it now centers on the kitchen rather than the barns. The last bountiful yield comes from the garden, the late sweet corn, the tomatoes, the root vegetables. The canning, the preserving, the freezing, the kitchen harvest in all its variety, reaches its peak.
九月是收获的季节。天空明净，持续数日。夜晚月光皎洁，月儿早早升上天空，迟迟离去，淡定从容。忙碌的农夫吃完晚饭，又回到田间地头，顶着月光收割。农夫还有好多事要做，活儿只不过从谷场移到了厨房。菜园里晚熟的玉米、西红柿、根茎类蔬菜，是丰收的最后一批果实。在厨房里，该罐装的罐装，该腌制的腌制，该冷冻的冷冻，好一派热闹忙碌的景象。

First frost comes in the night, a clear, scant-starred night when the moon is near its fullness. It comes without a whisper, quiet as thistledown, brushing the corner of a hillside garden. Dawn comes and you see its path—the glistening leaf, the gleaming stem, the limp, blackening garden vine.
月儿快要满盈的时候，月明星稀，初霜降临。它掠过山边的菜园，静如蓟花般悄然而至。晨曦初露，树叶上、树干上、藤蔓上，点点霜花，晶莹闪烁。

Another night or two the frost walks the valleys in the moonlight. Then it goes back beyond the northern hills to wait a little longer, and the golden mildness of early autumn comforts the land. A faint anise smell is on the air, goldenrod scent. The mist swirls and September sun shines through the deep-blue sky of September.
再过一两天，霜花借着月色，来到山谷，然后越过北坡回来小憩。初秋金色的太阳暖暖地照耀着大地，空气中飘散着淡淡的茴香和金菊的香气。薄雾漫舞，天空湛蓝，九月暖阳，万千闪耀。

To warm-blooded creatures, the crisp, cool nights of September are invigorating. But cold-blooded insects are at the mercy of the sun and now their clocks run down. The cicada is stilled. The chorus of the cricket and katydid diminishes. When they rasp at all it is with the deliberate tempo of a fiddler drawing a worn bow across fraying strings.
对于温血动物来讲，九月空气清冽的夜晚依然生机勃勃，而冷血动物失去了太阳的庇护，生命的时钟开始了倒计时。知了静了，蟋蟀和蚱蜢的合唱息了。虽然它们还会吟唱，可这吟唱宛如一个小提琴手小心翼翼地用破旧的琴弓在磨损的琴弦上发出的暗哑琴声。

Now come the hoarding days. Mice have been harvesting and stowing seeds for weeks. The chipmunk lines his winter bedroom, and squirrels hid the nut trees’ bounty. The woodchucks, gorging on grass and clover and fruit, lay up their harvest in body fat under their own skins.
储藏的季节到了。田鼠收果实，存种子，忙活了数周。金花鼠将种子堆满了过冬的洞穴，松鼠将胡桃树的果实收藏了起来。土拨鼠拼命吃下各种草叶、三叶草和果实，将吃下的东西储存在皮下厚厚的脂肪中。

The flickers begin to gather for migration. All summer these big wood-peckers were resolutely individual, busy with family life and wanting no company. Now they are gregarious, with time for tribal gossip and community play. The warblers and swallows have already formed in premigration flocks; soon the robins will be gathering too. Nesting is completed, fledglings are on their own, and there is food in plenty. September is vacation time for birds. Who knows but that they are discussing the trip ahead?
候鸟开始集结迁徙。整整一个夏季，这些大大的啄木鸟忙着享受家庭生活，并不想彼此结伴，而是各自为政。现在，它们聚在一起，彼此闲聊，集体玩耍。鸣鸟和燕子已经排好了迁徙飞行的队列，很快知更鸟也将加入其中。窝筑好了，幼鸟自己觅食，食物丰足。九月就是鸟儿的假期。如果说它们在讨论即将开始的旅行，谁说不是呢？

By September’s end the treasure chest of autumn begins to “spill over” with wealth. You see it glowing in the quiet afternoon, aflame in the sunset.
秋天收获的宝藏太多，在九月末开始满溢。这些宝藏在静静的午后，在日落的余晖中，熠熠发光。

Woodland, roadside and dooryard will soon be jeweled beyond a rajah’s richest dreams.
林地、路边、门前小院，很快将被秋色点缀得一片珠光宝气，即使古印度王侯最美的梦也梦不到这番景象。

The year’s season in the sun has run its course. Nature begins to prepare for winter. After the color in the woodlands, the leaves will blanket the soil. The litter of autumn will become mulch, then humus for root and tender seed. The urgency of growth is ended for another year, but life itself is hoarded in root and bulb and seed and egg.
秋季在阳光下走完了它的行程。大自然开始为越冬做准备。林地里斑斓的叶片将为大地铺上一层厚毯。掉落的秋叶将化为护根，继而化为腐殖质，为根茎和柔嫩的种子提供来年的养分。生长停歇，静待来年，而生命就藏在根与球茎中，藏在卵与种子中。

转载自网络