评论
打印
Byron, the Play Boy
花花公子拜伦
More than any other poet Lord Byron has been identified with his own heroes - with Childe Harold, the romantic traveler; with Manfred, the outcast from society; with Don Juan, the cynical lover. Although Byron did use his own life as the material for much of his poetry, it is by no means purely autobiographical. It is，however, in his long poems that Byron’s genius most truly resides rather than in the lyrics which usually represent him in selections.
人们认为拜伦勋爵比其他任何诗人更像自己创造的英雄人物，富于浪漫色彩的旅游者恰尔德哈罗德、被社会摈弃的曼弗雷德、愤世嫉俗的情人唐璜。虽然拜伦用自己的生活经历作为素材写了很多诗篇，但这些诗篇决不纯粹是自传性质的。最能体现拜伦天赋的还是他的那些长诗，而不是通常在选集里作为他的代表作的抒情诗。
Byron was born into an aristocratic family of doubtful reputation. His father died of drink and debauchery when Byron was 3, and when he was 10 his great-uncle — the ‘wicked’ Lord Byron also died. So Byron inherited the title.
拜伦出生于一个名声不太好的贵族家庭。他3岁时,父亲就死于酗酒和放荡的生活。10岁时，他的叔祖，“邪恶的”拜伦勋爵也去世了。因此拜伦继承了爵位。
He was born with a malformed foot—a disability which tortured him with self-consciousness in his youth. He went to Harrow and to Trinity College, Cambridge, where, amongst other eccentricities，he kept a bear. While an undergraduate be published his first book of poem Hours of Idleness. The criticism it got stung Byron not to despair but to revenge, and he replied with a satire in the manner of Pope called English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. After Cambridge, Byron went on the grand tour of Europe, traditional for men of his education. For nearly 2 years he wandered about Greece and the Aegean Islands. This was the shaping time of his imagination.
拜伦出生时，他的一只脚就带有残疾，敏感的拜伦因此在年少时代备受折磨。拜伦就读于哈罗公学和剑桥大学三一学院。在剑桥念书时，他行为古怪，还养了一只熊。但是在大学期间，拜伦就出版了第一本诗集《闲散的时光》。人们对这本诗集的批评深深刺痛了拜伦的心，但他没有绝望，而是想报复，他以蒲柏的风格写了一篇名为《英格兰诗人和苏格兰评论家》的讽刺诗反驳那些批评。离开剑桥大学以后，拜伦启程前往欧洲开始长途旅行，这是受过像他这种教育的人的惯常做法，在将近两年的时间里，他游历了希腊和爱琴海群岛。这是拜伦想象力形成的时期。
On 20 February 1812，the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage were published. They took the town by storm. Byron became famous overnight. And in the next 4 years he wrote a series of romantic poems; the best among them being The Corsair and The Bride of Abydos. It is said that 14，000 copies of The Corsair were sold in a day.
1812年2月20日《恰尔德哈罗德游记》第一、二章出版了，全城为之轰动，拜伦也一夜成名。在接下来的4年里，他写了一系列浪漫诗篇，其中最好的有《海盗》和《阿比多斯的新娘》。据说，《海盗》一天就销售了14000册。
Byron had always been susceptible to women and attractive to them. Now that he was successful they threw themselves at his head. For 3 years he lived in the limelight, and then, quite unaccountably, married Ann Milbanke, a frigid and correct woman, entirely unsuited to him, but with a lot of money. She bore him a daughter and left him within a year.
拜伦喜好女色，而女子也钟情于他。由于他己飞黄腾达，女人们更愿意投怀送抱，3年里他出够了风头，然后，莫名其妙地和安妮米尔班克结了婚。她是一个冷漠的、严肃的妇女，对拜伦来说根本不合适，只是家境殷实罢了。她为拜伦生下了一个女儿, 不到一年就离开了他。
In 1823 he left Italy for Greece, but the next year, worn out with the ardours of the campaign, he caught rheumatic fever and died at Missolonghi, mourned as a national hero by the Greeks.
1823年，拜伦离开意大利前往希腊，但是第二年，由于热心独立运动而劳累过度, 染上了风湿病，最终在梅索朗吉昂辞世，成为希腊人所缅怀的一位民族英雄。
