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Invisible Cities 看不见的城市

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课文讲解

繁體中文譯本

In the thirteenth century, the young Italian adventure, Marco Polo, traveled from Venice, Italy to Beijing, China. Here he met the Mongol emperor, Kublai Khan. This much is history. But those places in Central Asia which Polo traveled through along the legendary Silk Road – Persia, Afghanistan, Yarkand, Khotan – seem to us like the stuff of dreams, impossible to fully imagine. They are not only faraway and exotic, but also buried in the desert sands of a ghostly past.

十三世纪时，年轻探险家马可波罗从意大利威尼斯，风尘仆仆来到中国北京。他在这里遇见了蒙古统治者忽必烈汗。这些都是历史。波斯、阿富汗、叶尔羌、和阗……，马可波罗沿着丝路旅经这些充满传奇色彩的中亚城镇；对我们而言，这些城镇当时的样貌就像梦境一样，难以想象；遥远的路程、异国的风情，还有被沙漠掩盖的过往云烟。

In his fanciful novel Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino presents the aged emperor as a man who, perhaps like us, longs to experience first-hand these fantastic desert lands. The emperor is sad because he will never have a chance to visit the far-flung cities of his vast empire. He possesses them, and yet he cannot really possess them. He cannot see, smell, hear, touch, or taste them. They remain “invisible” to him; he can only try to imagine them. Therefore, he asks the young explorer to tell him what they are like because Polo has visited them all.

伊塔罗．卡尔维诺的奇想小说《看不见的城市》中，年老的忽必烈汗就像我们一样，渴望亲身体验这些奇异的沙漠城镇。老可汗因为再也没有机会一一亲访遍布广大领土的城镇，感到垂头丧气。他拥有这些城镇，却无法真正「拥有」它们。他无法用五官看见、闻到、听到、碰触、尝到这些城镇。既然马可波罗已经一一访问过这些城镇，忽必烈汗要求这位年轻探险家告诉他这些城镇的样貌。

Many passages in the novel present Calvino’s beautiful, highly poetic descriptions of these otherworldly cities – “hidden treasures” of memory and desire, of signs and eyes, of death and the sky. These purely imaginative passages alternate with the dialogues between Polo and the Khan. But these two men do not speak the same language, and thus it is difficult for the traveler to clearly communicate to the emperor the sounds and scents, the actual “feel” of these incredible places.

卡尔维诺所写的这本小说中有许多瑰丽、充满诗意的段落，描述着这些珍奇的隐藏都市：记忆与欲望之都、符码与窥看之镇、死亡与天空之城。这些充满想象力的段落，就在马可波罗与忽必烈汗的对话间展现开来。不过，因为他们所使用的语言不同，对马可波罗而言，要向忽必烈汗清楚表达这些不可思议城镇中的声音、气味、实际的感觉等等，是相当困难的。

Vocabulary

单词发音

Mongol [ˋmɑŋgəl] adj. 蒙古人的

Kublai Khan 忽必烈（元世祖）

much [mʌtʃ] pron. 重要的事物；了不起的事物 something great or remarkable

Persia [ˋpɝʒə] n. 波斯（现在伊朗的古名）

Afghanistan [æfˋgænə͵stæn] n. 阿富汗

Yarkand 莎车（中国新疆西部城市，等于Shache,Yarkend）

Khotan 和阗（和田）

exotic [ɛgˋzɑtɪk] adj. 异国情调的；奇特的 not native; introduced from abroad; foreign

fanciful [ˋfænsɪfəl] adj. 富于幻想的；想象的 created in the fancy; unreal

far-flung [ˋfɑrˋflʌŋ] adj. 分布广的; 散至远处的 remote; distant

possess [pəˋzɛs] v. 拥有，持有

otherworldly [ˋʌðɚˋwɝldlɪ] adj. 超俗的﹐ 超脱尘世的 of or relating to the spiritual or imaginative world  

passage [ˋpæsɪdʒ] n.（文章，乐曲等的）一段，一节

alternate [ˋɔltɚnɪt] v. 使交替，使轮流[（+with）]

课文讲解

Invisible Cities explores the problem of language and communication. With the Khan, Marco Polo could express himself only with “gestures, leaps, cries of wonder and of horror, animal barkings or hootings, or with objects he took from his knapsacks – ostrich plumes, pea-shooters, quartzes …” Calvino means that Polo’s cries and concrete objects, which come from the cities themselves, can express the “sense” of these cities better than words ever could. Calvino suggests that it’s impossible for people to completely communicate their feelings to anyone. Perhaps laughter and tears communicate more forcefully than words, which are too abstract to express our actual feelings.

《看不见的城市》探索了语言与沟通的问题。马可波罗只能透过「姿势、跳跃、赞叹与惊恐的喊叫、模仿动物的叫嚣声，或者从背包拿出实际物品：驼鸟羽毛、豆枪、石英……」向忽必烈汗表达所见所闻。卡尔维诺认为，马可波罗从那些城镇带来的具体物品或模仿的喊叫声，比语言更能表达这些城市的感觉。卡尔维诺亦藉此暗指人们不可能完完全全表达出自己所有感受。语言实在太抽象了！

The Khan’s very desire and ambition to “possess” all his empire by “seeing” these cities is itself not realistic at all. We can only directly experience specific sensations; we cannot “know” or “possess” entire cities or kingdoms. Polo tries in vain to tell the Khan this. The emperor begins to imagine that “If each city is like a game of chess, the day when I have learned the rules, I shall finally possess my empire.” When the two play chess, the Khan sees the chessboard as a map of his territory. Polo, however, points to the board and speaks lovingly of the old tree from which it came.

忽必烈汗想要「实际看到」他所「拥有」的城镇，这种欲望与野心是不切实际的。我们只可能直接体验某些感觉，而不可能「完全了解」或「拥有」整个国家。马可波罗想告诉忽必烈汗这一点，却徒劳无功。忽必烈汗反而开始想象：「如果拥有每个城镇就像下棋一样，只要了解下棋的规则，终究能完全拥有我的国家。」当马可波罗和忽必烈汗在下棋时，可汗把棋盘看成自己疆域的地图：马可波罗却指着棋盘，娓娓道来制作成这棋盘的神木原产于何处。

The futility of trying to make fully “concrete” our beautiful and complex imagination is closely tied, in the novel, to our sense of the shortness of all human experience. Just as the Khan’s attempts to grasp his empire are all in vain, so are our attempts to grasp the past: all we can hold onto is a handful of dust.

这本小说传达了一个理念：我们脑海中美丽、错综复杂的想象画面，来自于人生体验中的短暂感觉的累积，想让这些感觉完全具体化，是白费力气的。就像忽必烈汗想紧握自己国家的野心一样，是徒劳的；这如同我们想抓住自己的过往：只剩满手的沙，飞逝在空气中。

－by Frank Stevenson

Vocabulary

单词发音

barking [ˋbɑrkɪŋ] n. 吠声

hooting [ˋhutɪŋ] n. 猫头鹰叫声 the sound of a hoot, or the occasion of producing this sound

knapsack [ˋnæp͵sæk] n.（士兵或徒步旅行者用的）背包 abag made of sturdy material and furnished with shoulder straps, designed for carrying articles such as camping supplies on the back

ostrich [ˋɑstrɪtʃ] n. 驼鸟

plume [plum] n. 羽毛 a feather, especially a large and showy one

pea-shooter [ˋpi͵ʃutɚ] n. 豆枪; 射豆枪〔一种儿童用来吹射豆子等的玩具枪〕

quartz [kwɔrts] n.【矿】石英

concrete [ˋkɑnkrit] adj. 具体的 of or relating to an actual, specific thing or instance

abstract [ˋæbstrækt] adj. 抽象的

very [ˋvɛrɪ] adj. 完全的，十足的 sheer; utter

sensation [sɛnˋseʃən] n. 感觉

in vain 徒劳; 无结果的 to no avail; without success

lovingly [ˋlʌvɪŋlɪ] adv. 亲切地; 深情地

futility [fjuˋtɪlətɪ] n. 无益，徒劳 lack of effectiveness or success

shortness [ˋʃɔrtnɪs] n. 短小；不足

grasp [græsp] v. 抓牢；握紧