The Legend of Cleopatra
Now, Love, to whom sorrowed heart is tied,
Completely so, since that first blissful hour,
When I vowed wholly to bedeck your bower,
And only yours, Antonius, my knights;
That ever walking, both by day or night,
You’d ne’er be far from my soul’s singing,
Through weal or woe; though dance or carol ringing!
And in my mind, this covenant I had:
‘Whatever you should feel—or good or bad--
As much as in my power there could lay
To prove my wifehood so, forever a day,
I, too, would feel, be feeling life or death.’
〈埃及艷后傳奇〉
現在,我的愛,對你我憂傷的心緊緊相繫,我要對你說
我將我的心完全奉獻給你,從最開始那歡樂的剎那起
當我在我們婚姻的殿堂許下諾言
承諾從今只為你所有,安東尼斯,我親愛的騎士
只要你在我身邊的一天,無論白天或夜晚
你永遠都在我靈魂歌頌的所在,
無論幸福或哀傷,無論我們開心地跳舞或是歌唱聖歌
在我心中,在我與你立下的誓約中:
「無論你身處何種情境,無論好壞
只要我的能力所及
我一定會證明我是一個好妻子,一直到時間的盡頭,
跟你一起感受一切,無論生死。」
ps: 喬叟的《好女人的傳奇》也有不少讓人爭論的地方,其一就是:難道要陪老公去死才是好女人嗎?不過,埃及豔后究竟是愛得太深才一心以死相隨,還是深覺自己大勢已去,不如歸去來兮呢?
Geoffrey Chaucer's The Legend of Good Women, translated and edited Florence Hay Anastasas . Exposition Press, 1976.
圖片來源 picture