Jorge Luis Borges, like his small time literary lawyer father and like Milton, has been suffering progressive blindness especially towards the end of his life. That is why blindness touches him in a most personal and intimate way. He has written several poems about this debilitating and frustrating affliction. Heres, I translate one of his poems on this subject. Here it is.
Un ciego A Blindman 一 瞎子
No sé cual es la cara que me mira I know not the face that looks at me 當我望鏡中臉龐時
Cuando miro la cara del espejo; When I see the face from the mirror; 我不知望我那臉龐是什麼；
No sé qué anciano acecha en su reflejo I know not what old man lurks in his reflection 我不知在那無聲但疲倦的盛怒
Con silenciosa y ya cansada ira. With silence and yet tired rage. 反影中匍伏着怎樣的老翁
Lento en mi sombra, con la mano exploro Slowly in my shadows, with my hand I explore在我影子下我緩緩以我手探索
Mis invisibles rasgos. Un destello My invisible features. A flash 我看不見之容貌。–片掠光
Me alcanza. He vislumbrado tu cabello Reaches me.I have made out that your hair 攏近。我依稀看到你髮間之
Que es de ceniza o es aun de oro. Is of ash or even of gold. 灰白甚至那點兒金黃。
Repito que he perdido solamente I repeat that I have lost only 我重說我祇失去
La vana superficie de las cosas. The vain surface of things. 事物徒然之表面。
El consuelo es de Milton y es valiente, The consolation is from Milton and is valiant.. 這尉藉來自米頓而悍勇。
Pero pienso en las letras y en las rosas. But I think in letters and in roses. 但我正在想文字與玫瑰。
Pienso que si pudiera ver mi cara I think if I could see my face 我想若我能看到我臉龐
Sabria quién soy en esta tarde rara. I'd know who I am in this precious aftrernoon. 我會在這珍貴下午之中知道我是誰 。
This poem describes the plight of the nearly blind. Is he describing his own condition? He stands in front of that wonderful instrument which enables us to take a look at how we look to ourselves, the mirror. Looking is the one of the best means human beings have for reflecting on how he is, what he is and who he is. We may look at ourselves physically. We may also through looking at our physical image, look not just at but through the image appearing on the surface of the mirror. This is what Borges appears to be saying here. The blind man looks, not with his eyes. He looks with his hands. But what his hands touch is but the surface of himself. He has to see, not just with his hands. He must see with his eyes, his mind's eyes! We feel how desperate he is. He has to console himselff, to reinforce himself, not through his own inner strength. He has to rely upon the borrowed strength of another poet, a blind but one of the greatest poets Medieval Eruope has known, Milton, who wrote Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. He has to make light of what is on the outside by using the adjective "vana" or "vain" which he contrasts with another word also starting with the letter "v" , "valiente" or "valiant". to describe what is inside. Why the need to borrow the name of Milton? Why the denigration of the exterior, the surface if it is not worthy of his attention? Thus the very protest and dengration paradoxically seves merely to emphasize its great importance to him and measures the depth of the pains he felt at such a loss and such a deprivation! To me, what is vain is not the surface of things that he describes but the hollowness of his protest which makes it even more heart rending! The louder the sound of protest, the more hollow it sounds!
"Blind man sees a light, Man enough to risk his life for love, Sees the light of hope in the sky, A tiny spot light up the whole universe, Light up our life instantly..."
回覆刪除Good morning, buddy!
[版主回覆07/17/2010 10:49:00]Let the blindman's light shine. Yes, let it shine with love. Not mere sex masquerading itself as love. Let true love shine with the brightness of the sun, with a light so blinding that it burns away the sullied crystals that have hitherto stopped the blindman from seeing that splendour of true love.!
Excellent poem and your Chinese translation. Well done!
回覆刪除在我影子下我緩緩以我手探索我看不見之容貌。 The image is so vivid and so moving.
By the way, the font size of your blog (and some others) is a punishment to my poor eyes.
[版主回覆07/17/2010 12:35:00]The font size need to be small if I wish to maintain the parallel translations. Sorry my friend. Thanks for the compliment. Still some touching up I need to so when I got more time.
Two days ago, I have seen a description about one of his article that a man created a shadow son. He loved his shadow son who became part of his living life. One day he was afraid that his shadow son found out he was a shadow made by his father.... ... At the end of the story, that the man found himself was a shadow too. ( This is a wonderful story about real or false life, the feeling of existence ... )
回覆刪除[版主回覆07/18/2010 07:05:00]Yes, the South American writers in Spanish are very inventive. They have invented a whole new genre of novels which some have described as the school of "magical realism" in which events are described with great "realistic" details but in which such details, when put together, somehow will not "fit" into the usual chronological time to which we have been accustomed in the usual novelistic tradition. They have learned a great deal from the stream of consciousness techniques of such novelists as Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, William Faulkner etc and at the same time from the illusionary techniques of "romanticism" from dramatists like the Italian Pirandello, the Swiss Durrenmatt who also seek to blur the line between reality and fantasy and also from graphic artists like Esscher who often show us fascinating images of a number of mirrors reflecting images of people looking at mirrors whose images of such looking get reproduced an infinite number of times with each successive mirrors reflecting the reflected images of the earlier images. In our psyche, this is in fact what happens. We look at other people but at the same time and we form images of ourselves as if we were looking at someone else whilst at the same time other people are also looking at us. And we look at the image of ourselves in the others eyes and in turn we find also an image of the other being observed by ourselves to be observing us etc ad infinitum. So which is real? Which is the observed image of the real? This theme of the impossibility of finding out what is first level reality, what is second, what is third, fourth etc reflections of the initial reality has been repeated made the subject of fascinating novels and dramas. Sometimes, the novelists show us fragments of reality as if a mirror had been shattered and we are looking at the fragments of "reality" as reflected in the individual splinters or shards of such broken mirrors, each reflecting only a part of the entirety of reality. For a very long time now, doubles too have often been used in many European novels to show us different aspects of ourselves. In psychology too, many children have reported being accompanied by such "fictive" doubles, "guardian angels" or "imaginary friends" etc until their teenage and for the more serious cases, well into adulthood .
The human psyche is something really fascinating. And writers and artists makes such psychological reality "real" for us in various interesting artistic forms they created. In the Chinese tradition, we may also find a similar idea in the form of people having relationships with "ghosts" in some novels. Which is the real "us", which is the "image" of our "selves" in our own psyche? Here the Buddhist tradition has given us some answers: every "self" is but an "image" and is about as real as the "image" in a first mirror or a second mirror which reflects the image in the first mirror.... Do we live in reality? Do we live in the "image" inside a mirror. Do we live within our own image of ourselves or do we live within the image others form of us? As ChuangTsu related in one of his stories, do we "dream" about a butterfly or are we ourselves the "dream" image inside the dream of a butterfly? What is reality? What is an image of reality? What is an image of another image of reality? Which of such image is truer than the others? Or all of them true, but only partially?
When a blind man can't see things with his eyes, He will not be afraid because he has accustomed himself blind. But everyone want to know how his/her face looks like. This is base on human's desire. Is his face still atrracted others. Perhaps he wants to have a lover ...
回覆刪除What was the difference with his face whether it could be seen by himself or not. His face didn't change.
No one wants to be blind. But we should accept that if one day we are. I think Borges wrote this poem to tell us : hands can't be used as eyes, and although we use our heart to see who we are, that is still not enough for a blind man living in this "real" world, because a blind man don't really know other people around him. He can't see the response of facial expressions and emotions from others. And he didn't know how important he was to the outside.
[版主回覆07/18/2010 06:41:00]True, a blind man cannot "see" his own face. That is obvious. But in a sense, he can also "see". He "sees" with his "hands". Which is more real? The image seen by others's "eyes" or the image "seen" by his hands? Do they not both refer to the same "him"? Why should we privilege one sense over another, the visual over the tactile? You have rightly pointed out: " What was the difference with his face whether it could be seen by himself or not. His face didn't change."
We don't really know what Borges wanted to convey in the poem. We can only guess what he intended to do. Whilst it is true that a blind man cannot "see" others facial expression with his non-functional eyes and thus get some visual "clues" about how the others "feel" about him, he is not completely without resources. He can rely upon his others senses: his ears, his hands etc. He can hear what the others are telling him eg. whether his girl says she loves him and even if she is silent, he can also know whether she does by her "action" e.g hugging, kissing, touching his face, by the amount of time his lady lover devotes to him, what she does for him etc. There are many ways of learning how others may feel about us. And our eyes is only one of such modes. It is just that by habit, we rely upon it most because it is so "obvious" but it need not be the only or the exclusive mode. Anyway, we really ought to thank the artists. They make us think about our mental "habits". They question our habits and make us "see" familiar things with a new pair of "eyes"! Or they give us a new "heart"!
The eyes of the others are a terror. Others always want to imprison us with their eyes: we are so and so, we are such and such. And sometimes we commit this terrible crime upon ourselves. They don't want us to change. And sometimes we ourselves do not want to change. We become rigid, fixed, as if we were a statue cast in marble or in stone. But we know that only we ourselves know what we are thinking, what we are feeling. We feel that what's inside of us, that raging mass of emotions, thoughts, feelings about ourselves and others and about the things and events which are happeing around us is the real "us". And it's so difficult to let others know that "real" us. It's terrible to have to live under the constant gaze of others who want to imprison us, to freeze us with their gaze, both physically and psychologically by type-casting us. . The blind man can only "imagine" how others "look" at him. He lacks one of the most essential tools for detecting how he is "looked" at by others and is to that extent much handicappted. You can imagine how sad he feels about the lack this essential tool. He may thus feel crippled and had to hop in staggered steps whilst others can walk at a normal pace, or even run, something which he can never hope ever to do! We don't know the tears inside a blind man's heart and how it bleeds!
Which of such image is truer than the others? Or all of them true, but only partially?
回覆刪除In my opinion, there is no real or false in this world. If this world we live in is a false world, can we leave it and enter in what we suppose to be a real one world.
Of course I am part of you and everyone is part of this world, that's why we all gathering here in this wide wide world. What's the purpose of our lives? Only " Love " can explain all the doubts. We always keep in mind, no matter where we are , we are participating in an environment which has different people there and some matters are always happened. We bear in our mind we should try to do do the best choice to face those problems around us. We try to find the best way to solve problems and to have compromised of the majority. This is the method to measure the benefit of those participants. For this example, these group of people feel what's " Real ". This is the rule of living world. At the same time, the minority part will think the result is " False ".
Is our life is existence here in this world? Do we all fell in a dream world just like ChuangTsu related in one of his stories, do we "dream" about a butterfly or are we ourselves the "dream" image inside the dream of a butterfly? Actually Chuang Tsu just like every living human, want to know why we are here in this garden? He wants to find the answer " where should we come from? where do we go after death? But he knows there has no " real " answer, so he gives this pretty words, we are all dreaming, may be within the dream of a butterfly ... This is an exist to answer our existence, in fact, he gives no answer at all. This only remain a mind game.
[版主回覆07/18/2010 19:28:00]I am not sure I understand you. Of course, according to Buddhist theory, the whole world is just so many different forms of "illusions" and nothing is "real". But there, the meaning of "real" is special. What the Buddhist define as "real" is something which has "substance", something normal people regard as "concrete" and "permanent" ie. last for a long time. If so, then whilst something still "exists" e.g. being seen, touched etc, it is still real. It would be different if we were talking about a "concept" e.g the concept of "self" which people will normally do everything to protect, to promote and to defend, to "heap" what they regard as "good" things to. In the latter case, we can accept that that kind of "self" does not "really" exist because it is something created entirely by the human mind because that very "self" is changing as we are influenced by other people or other events and that therefore any "image" of that "self" is not really worth protecting, defending, promoted, benefited etc. We must be careful exactly what kind of things we are referring to when we say something is real or unreal. The kind of "reality" we meet in our "dream" is certainly very different from the kind of "realiy" we meet in waking life: there is at least this difference: in a dream, we cannot "truly" "touch" someone. eg. our lover, but in "real" life, we can. But the "feeling" we have for our lover in our dream may "feel" the same AS IF we were truly meeting him/her. To that extent, we must make a distinction. There is a hierarchy of "reality", in my humble opinion. We cannot talk AS IF all levels of reality WERE the same. The tactile quality of true "reality" is missing in a dream!
Now I understand more about you. I completely agree with you. That is: Who do know the true real of yourself but only you can by yourself.
回覆刪除But I want to tell you another things which had happened to me since I was young. Some of my dreams would come true after a period of time. I was almost without dream for over ten years, but still there is something just repeat the same as I have dreamt before. These feeling are so real ... How do you think about this kind of condition?
[版主回覆07/19/2010 01:55:00]
That is a very difficult kind of experience to explain. Several types of experiences may be involved. (1) Some Buddhists say it's prevision or pre-cognition. (2) Others says it's "deju vu"( French meaning "seen aleady"). There may be be what may be called "genuine" prevision. (type 1) Some people may actually "foresee" things before they actually happen. In the Bible, these people are called prophets. But we really need to be very very careful before we decide whether it is genuine prevision or pre-cogntion because what is "said" to be pre-seen, pre-viewed, pre-cognized may be very "vague"/"general". If so, then it's more or less like what the "fortune-tellers" tell us. They are very clever, they tell us something sufficiently detailed to make us think that they genuinely "knew" what they are talking about but sufficiently vague that we may "fill in the blanks" according to our own imagination. What they foretold may or may not be true. But the normal people will quickly jump to conclusions that their own religious prophets are really powerful etc. This happens in all kinds of religion where people are already brainwashed or already pre-disposed to believe whatever their masters tell them because they trust that they will not lie. This is a very common mistake. Someone we trust saying something about event 1 which we have good reasons to believe is true then go on to say something about phenomenon/event 2. We are more likely than not to believe that event 2 is true. There is an unconscious "transfer" of trust from event 1 to event 2. But event 2 may or may not be "true". We seldom "see" things as they are. When we say we see things, what we usually mean is that we "see" only what we have already "interpreted". I have no true explanations for why some people have "genuine" pre-vision. (type 1) If what they tell us is true, then reality must be like what Christian theology said: everything is just the "thought" of God and God is said to be all powerful and all knowing. To God, all of reality is laid down before his eyes. To God, there is no time as we understand it. To God, there is only the present: what has been called "the eternal present". If we have "geunine" pre-vision, then that means that for some reason, God lets us have a "peep" at what is inside his mind. This is extremely rare. But in history, there have been such reports. As to how true they are, we have little idea because this happened in the past. All we have are what others said has been said. We cannot verify it.
葉子, Because the reply was too long. I just realized that Part 2 of it was cut. I did it in a hurry because it was quite late and I wanted to go to bed. This is what I think about "Deja vu" (type 2). I think it may be the result of a mistake made by our own brain. We "store " and we "retrieve" a memory by what I call a "memory cluster". ie. a memory consisting of sensory data from one or more of our eyes (sd 1), ears (sd2), mouth(sd3), nose (sd4) and skin(sd5) and with sd1 to sd5, we "create" a "memory cluster or a composite/integrated" memory (MC). I think even in Buddhist thought they may have a similar concept. They call it the "6th consciousness" or something like that but I am not sure. To trigger the recall of MC, only any one of sd1 to sd5 is needed. I am sure that you understand the Chinese expression: when we see an object, we think of the person and complete with details of time, place, objects, situation, what was said etc. This, I suggest, is what may be happening when we have the deju vu experience (type 2) experience: one or two of the sd1 to sd5 present previously in the actual past/ a scene in a dream is/are similar to the later situation in which type 2 occurs. Because of such similarity, we feel a very strong belief/conviction that what we "experience" at that later point in time at that new location/place/situation had already "previously happened (in the case of ordinary recall of a past memory or that it has been "predicted" in our previous dream or sometimes even without having previously dreamt about it.
回覆刪除Contid.
回覆刪除All we feel at that later point in time at that new place is just a very strong feeling/belief/conviction like: "Oh, I had dreamt about this/somehow I am sure I had experienced this before!". We do not know why at that point, just that it felt so. In fact it may just be a faulty "recall" triggered by the similarities of one or more of sd1 to sd5 from the previous occasion/dream being "recalled" when compared to the sources of the sd1 to sd5 in the later situation when we think we are having the type 2 "deja vu experience." ie. the "parts" triggering a "feeling" of the "whole" in a MC. But in fact, it may be just a trick/fault/error of our "recall" mechanism. I hope this makes it clear. This is my own theory. I do not know if you agree. There is nothing magical about it. We must look at the data, reflect and draw the necessary inferences with our mind without allowing it to be influenced by what superstitious people (most religious people are quite superstitious for reasons of ignorance, including some so-called "masters"), fear of what is "bad/unacceptable" and desire/hope for what they think is "good".
I want to say I don't think those "preview" was meaningful. For a true example, I dreamt of a place which I didn't go there before, and I saw some statues made of gypsum ( 石膏 ), and of course I didn't see those shapes of statues which made with gypsum before. After a few years, I saw them placing in front of a house which was in 錦繡花園. That was my first time to visit my relative's new house in 錦繡花園 and I walked passing by that house. Sometimes I saw a person whom I don't know and the place of this unknown person in my dream. After a period of time, maybe a few years later, I visited that place of that person ( a few scenery just the same completely matched with what had appeared in my dream ). Sometimes, the conversations with a person in a place (but that was my first time to know that person and was my first time to go that place ). For me, these things were meaningless, but I would be shocked for a few seconds when I sensed that had been appeared in my dream before.
回覆刪除Although I don't think these matter of dreams were a preview of something special, but I was curious why showed me about this kind of things in my dream ... Sometimes I would ask myself, "what for, and why ... " But now I don't care about this condition because there is no answer and this is meaningless.
[版主回覆07/19/2010 14:43:00]I also had some such "deja vu" experiences, more when I was young and less now. To me, because all we had is a very strong "feeling" that we had seen that or been in that kind of situation before, whether a person, what was said, a particular expression on that face of that person, certain details in the scene of this "type 2 deja vu" situation (which we are sure we "had" experienced before,) it is not CERTAIN that we ACTUALLY had that kind of experience or "dreamt" that scene before. Memory scientists have already found evidence of the "fabircated" "reconstituted" or "created" nature of our "memory" (MC) and social psychologist have found evidence it is entirely possible for people to "claim" to have experienced something which upon verification, they COULD NOT have previously experienced. My theory is that it is a kind of "false memory" caused by the very mechanism of memory "formation" and memory "retrieval" through the cluster system of storage and retrieval ie. one or two details triggering the whole clusters and hence triggering the "creation" of the false memory. Otherwise you will have to rely upon the "religous" "explanation. The fact that you find that such "preview" or "precognition" relate to some trivial events of no emotional or other significance confirms my theory that it is the result of an "accidental error" in the so-called "memory retrieval" system.
I understand your detailed explaination about "Deja vu" and I heard it before when I was young. I had judged that by myself before. I myself had tried to find out the answer for my condition a long time ago. For example, the matter of 錦繡花園, that was happened about 15 years ago, and I thought of this curious matter and I found out : may be I received the images from other person's brain, I mean I received the elecronic waves about those sceneries ( the statues made by 石膏 placing out of that house ) But those shapes of statues were so clear ...
回覆刪除And some dreams which I can't find a perfect answer ...
[版主回覆07/19/2010 16:12:00]If you are really interested in this type of phenomena, perhaps I can go home and dig out the name(s) of some of the books which deal with them and let you know. The "brain-wave" theory is one of the explanatory theories which has been put forward. It has got to do with certain quantum energy field. But I am doubtful. Are you interested enough?
You mentioned about certain statues you said you saw for the first time in Fairview Park. It is probable that you might actually have seen those statues before or even dreamt about them. In either cases, you must already have seen in a book or some other place only that you have "forgotten" where you actually "saw" them for the very first or second or third time. The problem with our memory is not that we do not "remember" them, the real problem is that we often have difficulties in "recalling/retrieving" from from our memory bank and as I previously said, memory is never straightforward "remembering" understood in the normal sense ordinary people use the term, but is a question of "active reconstruction" from certain more basic sensory data. The deju vu phenomena which so many people find so "intriquing" or "mysterious" may in fact be just a "reconstruction" error in our so-called "recall/retrieval" system. Whatever the true cause of such "deja vu" experiences may be, it is wise for us not to bother ourselves with any "religious" explanations and just treat them as any other more "ordinary" experience.
回覆刪除In fact, I don't want to argue with you. I only told you the truth.
回覆刪除I am sure that I didn't see those statues before. The shapes of statues and their placing position and the whole scernery of that house's outside just all matched in my dream.
I want to ask a question, how many people have seen statue made with 石膏 in Hong Kong? And the shapes of specular head ~ birds ... ( I have forgot those shapes by now, I only remember this matter )
About what I have mentioned , the phenominon of my dreams, is enough of course. You are no need to dig out those books of yours. I have told you in my previous response, I don't really care about that because all that dreams are meaningless. The purpose which I want to give you one more idea to think about your topic " real "
[版主回覆07/19/2010 18:10:00]Please do not misunderstand me. Argument is not something to be avoided if the object of the argument is what we hope will be that elusive quality we call "the truth". Argument is bad if its real object is the saving of "face". I do not have a "face" problem. If I argue, my object is to try to find out what the truth may be. I do not regard your stating of facts as "argument" to attack my "face". But my long experience as a trial lawyer and my reading of psychology has given me cause to think that quite often even "honest witness" with the best intentions in the world may still make "errors" of judgement. The strength of our "conviction" cannot be a guarantee of the "truth" of the contents of beliefs we "feel" so convinced about. We may not not even be aware of their operations. Processes may operate "subconciously" or below the surface of our "consciousness" and those thoughts and feelings of which we are aware may represents about just about less than 10% of all the processes that may be going on within our brain at any one time. The brain is a very complicated if not the most complex organ in the entire universe and our brain processes make errors of judgement all of the time. In fact, errors and chance is deliberately built into our brain system. Otherwise, there could never be anything new under the sun, no inventions and no creativity at all! Don't think of our brain processes as an accurate device like our digital clock. There are all kinds of neural pathways which overlap with each others and no neural pathways serve exclusively one purpose: they are all multi-purpose pathways and there are all kinds of feedback loops between one system and another. In fact neural messages from different systems are engaged in a constant war of the jungle for attention by what we call our "consciousness" every second of our lives and in the hurry, mistakes are the rule rather than the exception. It is really a question of which systems will have the "provisional" attention of what we erroneously call our "self" (which really is more akin to a collection of competing systems with no permanent "master" ) at any one point in time. All our decisions are provisional and approximate! So I am not at all surprised that mistakes of "attribution" of the cause of certain phenomena we are aware occur.The wonder is not that they occur but that they occur so little of the time! This is just a statment of the "normal" state of our brain processes and is not intended as a criticism of your or for that matter any one else's ability to recall things accurately. We often make mistakes. Mistake is the rule rather than the exception. Otherwise, we will be gods and not human beings. "Deja vu is" therefore part and parcel of that "normal" functioning of our brain and is well within the normal "tolerable error range". Our brains do misfunction from time to time, our strong conviction that we are right notwithstanding!
I didn't think you are arguing with me. I used the word " argue ", that is only a word to express I won't talk about this topic of my dream with you again. That was enough, if not, I afraid our "conversations " will become endless topic. Although I think "argue" is quite good sometimes, it makes us knowing each other more clearly. Also, I know you are a rational man and only believed on scientistic data and analyze. For me, I don't believe all the behaviers and phenominons are depended on the scientific analyzing results. I believe something happening cannot be explained by science. We are only a human being. Our thoughts and our abilities are limited with our instincts. We create there is God and we put all the incredible things to God and the questions about the existence of all the living creatures and universes to God. God creates everything, so that's all perfect answer.
回覆刪除I agree with :What you have mentioned about the temporary memories, the accuracy of "true and real " and easily made mistakes if we judge things only depending on our own memories. Our brains do misfunction from time to time ...
( But sometimes, there's exceptional ... )
[版主回覆07/20/2010 07:33:00]I do my best to remain rational because I am afraid what may happen if I am not. But I also realize that what makes us human is not just our reason. There is also intuition. There are also feelings. There is also art. There is also music. It is the latter which makes life more interesting, more fascinating, more Life-like. I also know that our science cannot explain everything there is to explain. What makes life interesting is its mysteries. There are so many mysteries! I love Life.