最瘋狂,最惡劣,最危險的10個詩人(上)

Poets are sensitive, ethereal creatures, ineffectual dreamers obsessed with metaphors and finding the right rhythms and rhymes. They're generally harmless, right? Not always. On this list, there are killers, crooks, plotters, rakes, a blackmailer, several revolutionaries, heartbreakers, duelists, drunkards, an opium fiend, a serious oddball, and even one fascist. To borrow the words of Lady Caroline Lamb, who played mistress to one of them, these men were mad, bad, and dangerous to know.

人們印象中詩人是機智敏感，超凡脫俗，癡迷修辭和韻律的夢想家。他們通常應該不會惹什麼麻煩，對不對？但事實並非如此。以下列出的十位詩人簡直無惡不作，他們不是殺人放火，欺詐勒索就是決鬥廝殺，策劃陰謀，他們還造反，負心，酗酒，吸食鴉片，放蕩不羈，行爲古怪甚至還有一個法西斯主義者。借其中一人的情婦卡洛琳·蘭姆的話來說這真是一羣瘋狂，惡劣又危險的人。

10. Fran漀椀猀 Villon

10. 弗朗索瓦·維庸

Villon by name and villain by nature, he was a murderer, thief, and an all-round low-life. He was also the finest lyric poet in France in the 15th century. Born in either 1431 or 1432, he was brought up by a professor of canon law in Paris. After leaving university in 1452, his life descended into a series of brawls, imprisonments, and exiles. His only appearances within the historical record come from prison data.

維庸可以說是幹盡壞事，他不僅是小偷還是殺人犯。但也是十五世紀法國最優秀的抒情詩人。維庸1431年或1432年出生於巴黎，被一名教士收養。1452年離開大學之後，他的生活一落千丈，打架鬧事，鋃鐺入獄，多次被驅逐流放。歷史上對他的記載基本都與他入獄相關。

Villon by name and villain by nature, he was a murderer, thief, and an all-round low-life. He was also the finest lyric poet in France in the 15th century. Born in either 1431 or 1432, he was brought up by a professor of canon law in Paris. After leaving university in 1452, his life descended into a series of brawls, imprisonments, and exiles. His only appearances within the historical record come from prison data.

1455年，維庸在巴黎醉酒後，與人爭執中捅死了一名律師。他本應被逐出巴黎，卻得到了王室的赦免。1456年，他又帶領着一幫強盜從納瓦拉學院裏偷了500頂金冠。因此再次遭到驅逐。1457年，他在布洛瓦服刑，1461年，在穆蘭服刑。維庸最後出現在巴黎的記錄是1462年的盜竊罪。刑滿釋放後，他又參與了一場打架，被判處死刑，後改爲流放。1463年之後，他就徹底消失了。

Despite his lifestyle, Villon was a master of the intricate poetic forms of the ballade, the rondeau, and the chanson. His longer works touch on cosmology, satire, and religious symbolism. His work is rife with themes of failed love, melancholia, human suffering, lost time, and the ubiquity of death, featuring a cast of princes and prostitutes mired in Parisian brothels and drinking dens. Rimbaud revived his work in the 19th century, while Rossetti translated it into English, giving us the magnificent line “Where are the snows of yesteryear?”

雖然行徑不端，但是維庸在敘事詩，迴旋詩和香頌上造詣頗高。他的長詩涉及到宇宙學，諷刺和宗教象徵等方面。作品中充滿了對愛情失意，痛苦憂鬱，時光逝去以及死亡不可避免的訴說，多以各種王子和妓女沉溺在妓院和酒館爲主題。19世紀，蘭波重整他的作品並由羅塞蒂譯成英語，才使我們領略到了“Where are the snows of yesteryear”這樣精彩的詩句。

Thomas Wyatt

9. 托馬斯·懷亞特爵士

Wyatt played the dangerous game of sex, money, and power that constituted court politics under Henry VIII. He made his life even more dangerous by competing with the king for the hand of Anne Boleyn. After all, Henry's enemies had a habit of ending up with their heads separated from their bodies.

懷亞特遊走在亨利八世統治下集性，金錢和權力於一體的宮廷政治遊戲中。他和國王亨利爭奪安妮·博林的芳心更使他身陷險境。畢竟，亨利的敵人通常都要腦袋搬家。

Wyatt was a courtier and companion of Henry VIII from the age of 13. He was married at 17 and separated soon after. Some sources say that he had become the lover of Anne Boleyn by 1522, not long before she turned Henry's head. At least four poems by Wyatt are believed to refer to Anne, including the sonnet “Whoso list to hunt . . . ” that conceptualizes her as a deer hunted by many suitors but belonging solely to Caesar.

懷亞特從13歲起就是亨利八世的朝臣和玩伴。他17歲結婚，不久便離婚。傳聞說1522年他成了安妮的情人，但沒過多久，她移情別戀了亨利。懷亞特的詩中至少有四首是寫安妮的，包括“Whoso list to hunt…“， 詩中他把她比喻成小鹿，受到衆多人追逐，卻只屬於凱撒。

His diplomatic career reflected his falling in and out of favor with the king. He was sent away from court to France in 1526 and to Italy in 1527, where he was captured by troops of the Holy Roman Empire. During Anne's fall from grace in 1536, Wyatt was imprisoned for associating with her and viewed her execution from his cell. In 1539, he was the lead plotter in a plan to assassinate the Catholic Reginald Pole using intricate ciphers and poisons. By 1540, he was back in prison for treason. His later mistress was also rumored to have been taken by Henry as his lover.

他的外交生涯反應了國王對他的喜惡變化。1526年，他被遠送法國。1527年又到了意大利，在此被神聖羅馬帝國軍隊俘獲。1536年安妮王后失寵時，他因爲與其有聯繫而被關押並在監獄中目睹了她的行刑。1539年，他帶頭策劃，用毒藥暗殺天主教紅衣教主雷吉納爾德·博勒。1540年，他又因叛國罪進了監獄。傳言他後來的情人也被亨利國王佔爲己有。

His work was never published within his lifetime, but he was one of the leading poets of the English Renaissance. During his time in Italy, he picked up the works of Petrarch and introduced Italian models and poetic forms into English verse, including the sonnet.

懷亞特生前沒有發表過一篇作品，但他是美國文藝復興時期的一位重要詩人。在意大利期間，他學習了彼得拉克的作品並將意大利詩歌形式引入英文詩中，其中包括十四行詩。

Wilmot, Earl Of Rochester

8.約翰·威爾莫特·羅切斯特伯爵

Rochester's life was one long shambolic debauch before he died exhausted at age 33 in 1680. He was the greatest rakehell in the golden age of hell-raising that followed the Restoration of the monarchy under Charles II in 1665.

1680年33歲的羅切斯特筋疲力盡而死。在此之前，他一直過着混亂不堪，放蕩墮落的生活。1665年查理二世復辟後，英國處於地獄般的大混亂中。他是那時最放蕩的人。

Brought up by a Puritan mother, Rochester was introduced to drinking and whoring as a teenager at Oxford. Facing opposition from the parents of the girl he wanted to marry, Rochester simply kidnapped her from her coach one night at Charing Cross. He was sent to the Tower of London, but he married her on his release in 1667.

羅徹斯特的母親是位清教徒，但他十幾歲的時候就在牛津學會了喝酒和嫖娼。羅切斯特愛上了一個女孩並想娶她爲妻，卻遭到了女孩父母的反對。於是一天晚上他就在查林十字車站綁架了她。他因此被關進了倫敦塔，但是1667刑滿釋放後還是娶了她。

All noblemen took mistresses, but Rochester possessed an especially voracious appetite for whoring. His poetry is obsessed with liaisons, orgies, and drinking. He once confessed to having been continuously drunk for five years, amid complaints from his neighbors about his naked cavorting.

所有貴族都有情人，但是羅切斯特卻對嫖娼情有獨鍾。他的詩歌中充滿了對偷情，狂歡，飲酒的描述。他曾在面對鄰居們對他赤裸狂歡抱怨時承認自己已經連續五年長醉不醒了。

Rochester fought a sword fight with French officers at the Paris Opera in 1669, challenged several enemies to duels and was involved in the death of a drinking companion after a heavy session in 1676 ended with his cronies attacking a constable. He spent the 1670s in disgrace after insulting the king's favorite mistress, drunkenly destroying the royal sundial, and mistakenly handing Charles II a poem lampooning him.

1669年，羅切斯特在巴黎歌劇院與法國軍官以劍相搏，擊敗了幾位對手。1676年，在一次重要會議結束時他的親信攻擊了一名王室總管，之後他也捲入了酒友的死亡事件。他侮辱了國王最喜愛的情婦，醉酒打壞了皇家日冕又錯獻給了查理二世一首諷刺他的詩。這些事故讓他在17世紀70年代生活得很不容易。

Although an enthusiastic participant in the sybaritic culture of the Restoration, Rochester remained a sardonic observer of the mores of his age in his verse. His work was important in developing the rhymed couplet in iambic pentameter as a medium for satire and for his imitations of the Roman poets Horace and especially Lucretius.

儘管羅切斯特熱衷復辟時期的奢侈逸樂，他在他的詩歌中不忘諷刺那個時代的道德觀念。他的作品模仿古羅馬詩人賀拉斯和盧克萊修，作爲諷刺的媒介，在五音步抑揚格中雙韻體的發展起着重要作用。

At his best, Rochester combines wit, bawdiness, satire, and the materialism of Thomas Hobbes. Try “A Satyr Against Mankind,” “Signior Dildo,” or “A Ramble in St. James's Park,” but you might not want to read them too openly.

羅切斯特盡其所能地綜合了智慧，淫穢，諷刺和托馬斯·霍布斯的唯物主義。你可以試讀一下他的“危害人類的色情狂”，“老先生的假陽具”或“A漫步在聖詹姆斯公園”，不過最好不要在公共場合閱讀。

ard Savage

7.理查德·薩維奇

The aptly named Richard Savage was a satirist, blackmailer, murderer, and a friend of the poet Alexander Pope. He possessed a spectacular talent for falling out with the people he relied on for his well-being, and he blackmailed the woman he claimed was his mother.

“薩維奇”是兇狠攻擊，猛烈批評的意思。理查德·薩維奇人如其名是個諷刺作家，勒索殺人犯。 他也是詩人亞歷山大·蒲柏的朋友。他有一個奇妙的天賦那就是和他依賴的人鬧翻，他還曾敲詐過一名他聲稱是他母親的女人。

His origins are murky, but the facts seem to be these: In 1698, the Earl of Macclesfield divorced his wife, Anne, who then married one Colonel Brett. She also had two children with a man called Richard Savage, the 4th Earl Rivers, one of whom was given away at six months old in 1697. In 1718, the poet Richard Savage appeared, claiming to be the abandoned child and that he had been persecuted by his mother, kidnapped, and sent to the West Indies. It's almost certain that he was an imposter, but he wrote a poem entitled “The Bastard” detailing his mother's abuse and used the ensuing scandal to blackmail her family. Her son, Viscount Tyrconnell, gave him a home and 200 a year for his silence.

薩維奇的出身不明確，但是事情好像是這樣的：在1698年，麥克爾斯菲爾德伯爵與妻子安妮離婚。安妮後來又嫁給了一個叫佈雷特的上校。她還和一名叫理查德·薩維奇的裏弗斯第四伯爵有兩個孩子，其中一個在1697年，六個月大時送走了。1718年，詩人理查德·薩維奇出現了。他自稱是被遺棄的孩子，遭到母親的迫害和綁架並被送到了西印度羣島上。幾乎可以肯定他在撒謊，但是他寫了首名爲“野種”的詩詳細描述母親對他的虐待並用接踵而來的醜聞敲詐他的家人。她的兒子，子爵蒂爾康奈，給了薩維奇一處住所並每年給他200英鎊作爲封口費。

In 1727, this charming figure murdered a man named James Sinclair in a coffeehouse following a drunken argument. He was sentenced to hang at the Old Bailey before outcry among the literati led to a royal pardon from Queen Charlotte and a royal pension until her death in 1737.

1727年，這位迷人的詩人在一個咖啡館中醉酒鬧事，殺死了一名叫詹姆斯·辛克萊的男子。在倫敦中央刑事法院上判處絞刑。但由於文人的強烈反對，他得到了夏洛特女王的赦免並領取皇家養老金直到1737年去世。

He relied on Pope for money and provided gossip on fellow poets as material for Pope's Dunciad. Having once been patronized by Sir Richard Steele, the founder of The Spectator magazine, the pair soon had a falling out. By 1742, Savage had even managed to sufficiently annoy Pope to the point that he canceled the pension he provided. He died in debtor's prison in Bristol a year later.

經濟上薩維奇受蒲柏接濟，而他向蒲柏提供其他詩人的八卦作爲其長篇諷刺詩《愚人記》的素材。他曾受到觀察家雜誌創辦人理查德·斯蒂爾爵士的資助，但很快這兩人就鬧翻了。到1742年，薩維奇甚至惹急了蒲柏，使其不再爲他提供資金。一年後他在比利斯托爾因債入獄並死在了獄中。

ge Gordon, Lord Byron

6.喬治·戈登·拜倫勳爵

Lord Byron was the ultimate Romantic rock-and-rolling bad boy, with a taste for excess. Men wanted to be like him, and women wanted to be with him. His mad energy was probably inherited from “Mad Jack” Byron, his womanizing father who was rumored to have slit his own throat. The younger Byron turned the great hall of his ancestral home into a shooting gallery, drank from a cup formed from a human skull, and lived off nothing more than biscuits and wine. He spent his Grand Tour hanging out with Albanian warlords and kept a pet bear at Cambridge. He swam the Hellespont and kept a menagerie of foxes, monkeys, peacocks, cats, falcons, and a wolf in his palazzo in Venice.

拜倫是典型的浪漫主義時期放肆成性的不良少年。男人想和他一樣，女人想和他一起。拜倫的瘋狂勁可能是繼承了他的風流父親“瘋狂傑克”拜倫，傳聞他切開了自己的喉嚨。小拜倫把他家祖屋的大廳變成了射擊場，用人頭骨做的酒杯喝酒，每天生活在酒池肉林中。遍遊歐洲大陸時他整天和阿爾巴尼亞軍閥一起四處遊蕩，還在劍橋養了一隻熊當寵物。他常在達達尼爾海峽游泳，並且在他威尼斯的房子裏開了個小動物園養狐狸，猴子，孔雀，貓，獵鷹還有狼。

His love affairs were countless and frequently scandalous. Several times, his doctors warned about cutting down on the amount of sex he had, as it had actually become physically debilitating. He spent the year 1808 in London and Brighton living with prostitutes, one of whom he dressed as a boy and introduced to visitors as his brother. During their affair, Lady Caroline Lamb would send him locks of her pubic hair as a keepsake.

他的情史數不勝數，且常常讓人覺得可恥。他的醫生警告過他很多次不要縱慾過度，因爲這已經使他身體日漸衰弱。1808年他是在倫敦和布萊頓與妓女一起度過的。他還把其中一個穿上男裝介紹給客人，說是他的弟弟。卡洛琳·蘭姆夫人和他在一起時還送給他陰毛作爲信物。

He went through actresses, opera singers, countesses, and choirboys. He got the stepsister of Mary Shelley pregnant before swiftly dropping her. In Italy, the outraged husband of one mistress, Countess Guiccioli, challenged him to a duel. While living in Venice between 1816 and 1818, he claimed to have slept with 200 women, including a long affair with the wife of his landlord.

他有過各種各樣的情人，包括女演員，歌劇演員，伯爵夫人以及唱詩班少年。他讓瑪麗·雪萊的繼妹懷了孕便立馬甩了她。在意大利他收到了情人古奇奧利伯爵夫人丈夫憤怒的決鬥挑戰。他聲稱1816年到1818年在威尼斯期間睡過200名女子，並長期與他房東的太太偷情。

After marrying in 1816, he abandoned his pregnant wife and fled to the Continent following rumors of incest with his half-sister. Meanwhile, his works were regarded as blasphemous, which made him the most notorious poet in Europe. In Italy, he was connected with the revolutionary Carbonari. He died of fever in 1824 in Greece, after joining their fight for independence from the Turks and paying to re-equip the Greek fleet.

1816年婚後，拜倫拋棄了有孕在身的妻子逃到了歐洲大陸並傳聞與同父異母的妹妹亂倫。同時，他的作品被指褻瀆神靈，他成了歐洲最臭名昭著的詩人。在意大利，他成了炭燒黨的一員。加入土耳其獨立戰爭並重整了希臘艦隊之後，拜倫於1824年在希臘死於熱病。

注：本文轉載自前十網，譯者潘洪倩