Borges' Una rosa y Milton 波赫士之玫瑰與米頓

In this last of my translation of Borges' poems on blindness, we find the poet paying tribute to one of the greatest English poets of the Middle Ages, Milton. Perhaps for some, blindness may be a blessing in disguise. Blindness reduces the complexity of the world with its mad jumble of forms, colors, sights and make us concentrate only on its sounds and for the poet, the sound of words as they are stringed together one after another, like so many pearls which shine with their quiet and restrained sheen. Who knows if blindness may or may not have helped Milton to become the great poet that he is.

Una rosa y Milton                                        A Rose and Milton                                     玫瑰與米頓   

De las generaciones de las rosas                 Of all generations of roses                          從煙歿在歲月根內之

que en el fondo del tiempo se han perdido which have been lost to the root of time    千代玫瑰

Quiero que una se salve del olvido,             I wish that one will be saved from oblivion, 我欲其一免被

Una sin marca o signo entre las cosas         One without mark or sign between things     遺忘，在往事中沒汚點或告示。

Que fueron. El destino me depara               which were. My destiny provides me           命運賜我

Este don de nombrar por vez primera          with this gift of naming for the first time       給這無聲之花首次

Esa flor silenciosa, la postrera                   That silent flower, the last                              命名之禮物，米頓

Rosa que Milton acercó a su cara,              Rose which Milton closed upon his face,        最後挪近其臉龐那看不見的

Sin verla. Oh tú bermeja o amarilla            Without seeing it. Oh you vermillion or yellow玫瑰。噢你逝去花園

O blanca rosa de un jardin borrado,             Or white rose of a blotted garden,                   或嫣紅或蛋黃或雪白之玫瑰，

Deja mágicamente tu pasado                      Leave your immemorial past magically           魔幻地留下你遠古的過去

Inmemorial y en este verso brilla,               and this verse shines,                                         在這詩中閃耀，

Oro, sangre o marfil o tenebrosa                  Gold, blood or ivory or dark                              黃金，鮮血或象牙或陰暗

Como en sus manos, invisible rosa.             As in his hands, invisible rose.                     猶若你手中見不到的玫瑰。

To Borges, Milton is a rose, an unblemished rose in the path of time. He hopes to enshrine his homage to the great poet by this poem. He compares the defining qualities of that great poet as gold, blood, ivory represented respectively by the three colors of yelllow, red and white roses which bloom in that garden of dissipated time which waits for none. Gold may refer to its nobility, its eteranl value; blood may refer to its life, its pain and suffering and ivory may refer to the smoothness of its surface and the solidity of its contents.  He compares Milton to the rose in the hands of the poet which he could not see. But he holds that rose in his own hand, in the mental grasp of his mind and the emotional grasp of his heart. In that way, he leaves for us an indelible memory of the poet he admires and as he says, magically, in his verse. That is a rose which blooms in darkness and in the shades of his blindness.