CHEVREFOIL 金银花by Marie de France
Translated by Judith P. Shoaf
目前发现的最早的记述崔斯坦与伊索德传说的诗文，作者玛丽·德·法兰西为法国12世纪下半叶女诗人。出生在法国。长期生活在英国国王亨利二世的宫廷，英国人称她为“玛丽·德·法兰西”，即法国的玛丽。她与克雷蒂安·德·特罗亚属于同一时代，也都写以不列颠骑士的爱情为题材的故事诗,但她采用的样式是精练的短篇故事诗,即所谓“籁歌”(lais)。这种“籁歌”短者百余行，最长者也不过千余行。现存的这类中世纪短篇故事诗有20首，其中12首出自她的手笔，约于1180年结集出版。她的短篇故事诗着重从嫉妒、忍让、自我牺牲等不同侧面描写爱情,较少冒险情节。
It's my pleasure and I want truly
For the lai men call Chevrefoil
(Honeysuckle), the truth to tell:
Why it was made, how it all be fell.
More than one has toldmeorspoken,
And I've found it also written
About the Queen and Sir Tristram,
Their love so true, so pure, from
Which their sorrows multiplied--
Then, in asingle day, both died.
King Mark was angry and then some--
Angry at his nephew Tristram;
He banished him beyond his border,
Because of the Queen, for he loved her.
He goes home to whence he hails--
He was born in South Wales.
He lives there for one whole year.
He could not go back to see her.
But then he's ready to risk it all--
Death, destruction, any downfall.
Don't be too surprised, really:
Any true love who loves loyally
Suffers, and depression haunts
Him when he can't have what he wants.
Tristram suffers, his thoughts roam,
So he slips himself away from home.
He goes straight into Cornwall,
There where the Queen is known to dwell.
He hid himself in the forest alone,
Wanting to be seen by none.
But he crept forth in the evening light
When men seek shelter forthenight.
With peasants and the poorest folk
That night he his lodgings took.
He asked the news--just anything
About the doings of the King?
They told him then what they had heard:
The barons, summoned by the King's word,
Must come to Tintagel castle, where
The King wishes to hold court; there
At Pentecost, at Whitsunday,
They'll gather for joy, sport, and play.
The Queen, of course, will take part.
Tristram hears, joy fills his heart.
No way she can go to Tintagel
Without his seeing how she'll travel.
The day the king was on the move,
Sir Tristram came into a grove
Through which, he knew, the road lay
The crowd must use to pass this way.
He cut a hazel in half there,
Shaped and trimmed it, neatly square.
When he had prepared this staff,
He autographed it with his knife.
If the Queen saw this invention,
She would pay it great attention;
For this had all happened before--
She'd realized thus that he was there.
She'll recognize it, easy, quick,
As soon as she sees her lover's stick.
This is the gist of what he wrote,
The message he sent her,as he spoke:
That he'd stayed there for quite a while,
Waiting, lingering in exile,
Spying, trying to learn or hear
How he could find away to see her,
For without her he cannot live.
For those two, it's just like with
The sweet honeysuckle vine
That on the hazel tree will twine:
When it fastens, slips itself right
Around the trunk, ties itself tight,
Then the two survive together.
But should anyone try to sever
Them, the hazel dies right away,
And the honeysuckle, the same day.
"Dear love, that's our story, too:
Never you without me, me without you!"
The Queen was riding through the wood.
She looked around, as far as she could;
She saw the staff, paid heed to it,
And, by the letters on it, knew it.
The knights who led the cavalcade
Accompanying her--quite a parade--
She commands to halt their progress;
She wants to dismount, take a rest.
What the Queen commands, they do.
She wanders far from her retinue
She calls out to her own maiden
To come to her--good, true Brengvein.
She leaves the path, a step or two;
In the woods she finds that man who
Loves her more than any other.
They show their joy, to be together--
He can talk to her at leisure,
She speaks to him all her pleasure.
Then she outlines every little thing
Needed to make peace with the King,
For it weighs heavy on her husband
Thus to have sent him from the land--
Accusers forced him, it wasn't fair.
Now she goes, she leaves her friend there.
But when it's time for them to sever,
Each begins weeping for such a lover.
Tristram goes back to Wales as before.
Till his uncle commands that he be sent for.
Because of the joy, the delight
He found in his beloved's sight,
And becauseof what he'd written,
Exactly as the Queen had spoken,
To keep those words in memory sharp,
Tristram, who played so well the harp,
Made of this a brand-new lai.
The name is easy for me to say:
English folk call it "Goatleaf,"
French "Chevrefoil"("Honeysuckle," in brief).
I've spoken for you the whole truth of the lai
Which I recounted for you today.
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