爬向伯利恆的猛獸

標籤: 倉海君, 普通讀者, 戲如人生

作者：倉海君

(來自：Finished Anton Chigurh illustration)

前天偷空看了No Country for Old Men(《二百萬奪命奇案》)，除了不倫不類的中譯片名及廣東話字幕外，我可謂非常滿意。戲中的殺人狂Anton Chigurh，根本是人肉Terminator：梳一個湯碗頭，執一把繫簧槍(captive bolt pistol)，殺人如殺雞，嗜血之餘又弔詭地潔癖，還誓死堅持他別開生面的做人原則，這有趣的角色實令我驚為天人。戲我不多說了，但剛剛在網上看到Paul的新作《Programme (電視節目)》，反而令我想談談No Country for Old Men這片名。Paul在文中說：

忽然很明白為什麼奧斯卡的最佳影片的英文叫「No Country for Old Men」......意思其實是，這個社會再沒有適合老一輩生活的空間，全因這個世界變得太瘋癲了。莫非，我也老了？

當然，這也是不錯的理解，但深入一點看，我們尚可作另一種詮釋。很多人都知道這片名來自葉芝(William Butler Yeats, 1865 –1939)的詩《航向拜占庭》首句，全詩如下：

Sailing to Byzantium

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;*
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

*Yeats: "I have read somewhere that in the Emperor's palace at Byzantium was a tree made of gold and silver, and artificial birds that sang."

詩人其實是把「航向拜占庭」--葉芝視之為聖城，並曾說那兒的「宗教、藝術和實踐生活混然不分」(請參考A Vision)--當作內心靈性發展的象徵；他自覺年事漸高(成詩時已過六十)，是時候要揚棄這五光十色的花花宇宙，而轉向不朽的藝術，藉此追尋永恆的生命。在詩中，"That is no country for old men"指的可以是愛爾蘭，也可以是任何塵世的國度。首章大肆描繪生生不息的自然景象，魚躍於海，鳥歌於樹，還有年輕人甜蜜的依偎。本來是一片光明的花樣年華，但葉芝卻在中間出人意表地狠狠插進一句"Those dying generations"；之後更在第七行起首落了一個"Caught"字，於是樂園的姹紫嫣紅，都紛紛抹上幾分鐵窗風情，淪為「深鎖春光一院愁」了。所以說"No country for old men"，恐怕不是世界容不下老人，而是老人不該眷戀塵世。除非他的靈魂拍手歌唱，否則他只是掛在木枝上的破衣而已。靈魂如何歌唱呢？就是從偉大的藝術作品中--亦即從那來自萬有之源的聖火中--提取創作靈感，繼而以詩歌、雕塑或繪畫等形式來淨化自己，用自身永恆的神性煉出垂萬世而不滅的人工傑作，這就是葉芝「航向拜占庭」的終點，亦是他認為老者所理應追求的最後歸宿了。

為免干擾大家玩味此詩的樂趣，我不打算窮盡詩中種種象徵的隱義，但有一點值得指出：葉芝是「金光黎明會」(The Hermetic Order of Golden Dawn)的資深會員，別號「魔者神之反」(Daemon est Deus inversus)，簡稱 D.E.D.I。因此他的詩歌涉及不少秘學符號和暗語，例如上面第三章第三行的"perne in a gyre"便大有玄機：perne即pirn(緯紗管)，此作動詞用，指"spin round"，令人聯想到把生命線纏到紡錘上的命運女神；而gyre更是葉芝秘學的核心概念，字面上是「旋轉」，但對詩人而言，則表示人生螺旋型的上升軌跡，以及歷史二千年一度的大周期。通過這種意象，葉芝表達了他那既循環又向前的時間觀，由此我們也更能掌握詩中所謂「永恆」的真義。本來「藉藝術獲得永生」是一老掉牙的主題，例如賀拉斯(Horace)在《詩集》(Carmina) 3.30中形容自己的詩則說："Exegi monumentum aere perennius"(直譯是「我建立了比銅還要堅固的紀念碑」)，不就是葉芝的"Monuments of unageing intellect"嗎？莎士比亞在十四行詩的第十八首中也自誇寫的是"eternal lines"，漂亮的友人可在他詩中長存："So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,/ So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."但葉芝畢竟是二十世紀首屈一指的大詩人--Professor Bloom說他" surpassing even Thomas Hardy, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, T.S. Eliot, and Hart Crane"--這種陳舊得近乎腐爛的主題，一落在他的生花妙筆之下，居然能幻成拜占庭皇宮內金銀樹上那唱出古今傳奇的人造鳥，這不正正就是化臭腐為神奇的不朽秘術嗎？

結合原詩來看，電影的主題實在明顯不過：變動不居的世界，並非追求美善者安身立命之處，一切都是流水落花，悉歸無常，而永恆的平安，最後的審判，統統都在水一方，遠在那可望而不可即的彼岸。當然，詩跟電影並不百分百同步，反而我認為原著小說及電影的名字雖取自《航向拜占庭》，但主題其實更接近葉芝的另一名作《再臨》(The Second Coming)：

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

此詩講新世界的降臨，也許暗喻了從耶誕降生開始的雙魚時代之終結，而過渡到今天這個重視個人靈性覺醒的寶瓶時代，當然也可以是寄託了詩人在一次大戰或俄國革命後對西方文明的看法。詩無達詁，我們不必說實，然而詩中對舊世界秩序瓦解和價值崩潰所作之暗喻，相信是任何讀者都不難看到的。對照一下電影首尾老警長的自白－－如「遺失了父親交給他的錢」(比喻昔日的秩序已蕩然無存)，「拿着火炬投身荒涼黑暗的世界」等－－情景不是跟此詩遙相呼應嗎？再想一想Anton Chigurh， 簡直就是脫胎自這幾句："somewhere in sands of the desert/A shape with lion body and the head of a man,/A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,/Is moving its slow thighs"。無論詩中抑或戲內，似乎象徵新世代的，都是這頭有人類智慧和動物獸性的「魔鬼」－－不，也許他正是喬裝撒旦而自甘寂寞的上帝。

(本來還想再討論一下Zeke前幾日在《童貞懷孕》中提及的《詩篇》章節，但今天已沒時間了，過兩日再續吧。)