October Days1十月天

Just below me on the hillside is a forty-acre field that slopes gently down to the valley. Last year it was ploughed by a motor-tractor： this year I rejoice to say it is being ploughed in the old way， as it has been ploughed for a thousand years. I suppose we ought to be grateful for the motor-tractor and the steam-digger that in cheapening production cheapen our food， but I am glad that the farmer below me has returned to the ancient way. When the machine comes in， the poetry goes out， and though poetry has no place in the farmer’s ledger2 it is pleasant to find that he has sound reasons for reverting to the primitive plough. All the operations of the fields are beautiful to see. They are beautiful in themselves and beautiful in their suggestions of the permanence of things in the midst of which we come and go like the guests of a day. Who can see the gleaners in the field， or the haymakers piling the hay on the hay-wain， or the mower bending over the scythe without the stirring of the feelings which the mere beauty of the scene or of the motion does not explain？3 Indeed the sense of beauty itself is probably only the emanation of the thoughts subtly awakened by the action. It is so with pictures4. I do not know any painting that lives in my mind with a more abiding beauty than one of Millet’s. It is just a solitary upland field， with a flight of birds and an untended plough lying in the foreground. The barrenness and austerity of the scene5 are almost forbidding at the first glance， but as the mind dwells on it， it becomes instinct with6 meaning and emotion. Evening has come and darkness is falling over the land. The labourer has left the field and the rooks are going home. In the midst of the ancient solitude and silence that have taken possession of the earth， the old plough has the passion of personality. It embodies the epic of man’s labour with the intensity that direct statement could not convey but only the power of suggestion can give.

就在我下方的山坡上，有一片四十英亩的田地，坡度徐缓地往下延伸到山谷。去年这块地用一辆拖拉机犁过，而今年我会乐滋滋地说，人们正以古老的方式犁这块地，就是沿用千年的那种方式。依我看，我们应该感谢拖拉机和蒸汽挖掘机，它们既降低了生产成本，也降低了食品价格，但我高兴的是地里那个农民已然回归了古老的耕作方式。随着机器的引进，诗歌过时了。虽然那位农民的日常算计中没有诗歌的份额，但我欣喜地发现，他依然满有理由转回去使用简陋的犁铧。田间地头的劳作全都赏心悦目，不仅美在它们自身，还美在它们透出的种种迹象，暗示着我们如匆匆过客般亲历事物之恒久。谁瞧见有人田间埋头拾穗，或弯腰挥镰割草，抑或往车上堆放干草，能不心潮荡漾？何以如此情难自禁，单以风光美丽或动作漂亮是说不通的。事实上，美感本身可能只是显现被行为隐约唤起的想法。欣赏画作亦然。我不知道留存于我心的画作，有哪幅能比米勒的任一幅更具持久的魅力。他画的只是一片孤零零的高地田野，一群飞翔的鸟儿，前景里有一把无人看顾的犁躺在那儿。一派贫瘠萧瑟的景象，初看几乎令人悚然心惊，但神游其中，它便渐渐充满意义与情感。夜幕已经降临，黑暗开始笼罩大地。农民离开了田地，秃鼻乌鸦也要归巢。在已然占据大地的远古的孤独与静谧之中，那把古老的犁富于强烈的个性。它象征着人类劳动的史诗，气势之盛难以直言道明，只能借助暗示传递几分。

And so it is with the scene before me. As I watch the ploughman drawing that straight， undulating line in the yellow stubble of the field， he seems to be not so much a mortal as a part of the landscape， that comes and goes as the seasons come and go， or as the sun comes and goes7. His father， it may be， ploughed this field before him， and his father before him， and so on back through the centuries to the days when the monks still drank their sack8 and ate their venison in the monastery below， which is now only a mound of stones. And over the new-ploughed soil the rooks， who have as ancient an ancestry as himself， descend in clouds to forage as they have descended in these late October days for a thousand years. And after the rooks， the starlings. They have gathered in hosts after the pleasant domestic intimacies of summer for their winter campaigning， and stream across the sky in those miraculous mass man-oeuvres that affect one like winged and noiseless music. When they swoop down on the upturned soil the farmer blesses them. He forgets the devastations of the summer in the presence of the ruthless war which the mail-clad host is making on the leather-jackets and other pestilent broods that lurk in the soil.9 They， too， have their part in the eternal economy of the fields. They are notes in that rhythm of things which touches our transitoriness with the hint of immemorial ancestry.

我眼前的画面也是如此。我注视着耕夫在遍布黄色麦茬的田野上划出那条高低起伏的直线，觉得他似乎不是一个普通人，而是风景的一部分，频繁地出现和消失，伴随着四季更迭或昼夜交替。他的父亲，或许在他之前就耕过这片地，还有他父亲的父亲，耕着耕着，顷刻间时光倒流几百年，回到僧侣们依然在修道院里饮萨克酒、吃鹿肉的日子，而当年位于田野下方的那座修道院，如今只剩下一堆石块。盘旋在新耕土地上的秃鼻乌鸦，和耕夫本人有着同样古老的祖先，它们成群地从天而降，一起觅食，上千年来多少个十月下旬的日子亦复如是。秃鼻乌鸦之后是椋鸟。夏天愉悦亲昵的家庭生活结束后，大量椋鸟聚集起来，为它们越冬的斗争做准备。它们以神奇的群体飞翔特技掠过长空，和振翅而作的无声乐曲一样打动人心。眼见它们俯冲而下，落在深翻过的土壤上，农民自会送上祝福。这支全副武装的鸟儿大军正在向潜藏于土壤的大蚊幼虫和其他害虫幼虫发动无情的攻击，他目睹全程，自然忘了夏天遭受的祸害。这些鸟儿也参与了田地的永久经营。它们构成了那首万物咏叹调的一个个音符，给我们眼前的倏忽一瞬平添了些许悠悠远古的意味。

The ploughman has reached the far end of his furrow and rests his horses while he takes his lunch by the hedgerow. That is aflame once more with the returning splendours of these October days. The green of summer has turned to a passion of gold and scarlet and yellow and purple10， and all over the landscape the foliage is drunk with colour. The elms that have stood so long garbed in sober green are showing wonderful tufts and curls of bright yellow at the top， like old gentlemen who are growing old gaily. It is as though they have suddenly become vocal and hilarious and are breaking into song. A few days hence they will be a glory of bright yellow. But that last note of triumph does not belong to October. It is in the first days of November that the elm is at its crowning hour. But the beech is at its best now， and the woodlands that spread up the hillside glow， underfoot and overhead， with the fires of fairyland.