埃及神话人物

埃及神话人物

埃及神话中的死神，中国大陆更习惯译成奥西里斯。奥西里斯掌管冥界，他的儿子荷露斯，就是埃及人间的法老。英国诗人雪莱有写诗来歌颂他。

雪莱诗作Ozymandia

Ozymandias

Percy Bysshe Shelly奥兹曼迪亚斯（杨绛译）

I met a traveler from an antique land,

我遇见一位来自古国的旅人

Who said----"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 他说：有两条巨大的石腿

Stand in the desert...Near them, on the sand,

半掩于沙漠之间

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

近旁的沙土中，有一张破碎的石脸

And wrinked lip, and sneer of cold command,

抿着嘴，蹙着眉，面孔依旧威严

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

想那雕刻者，必定深谙其人情感

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

那神态还留在石头上

The hand that mocked them, and the heart, that fed;

而私人已逝，化作尘烟

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

看那石座上刻着字句：

"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,

“我是万王之王,奥兹曼斯迪亚斯

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

功业盖物,强者折服”

Nothing besides remains. Round the decay

此外，荡然无物

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

废墟四周，唯余黄沙莽莽

The lone and level sands stretch faraway.”

寂寞荒凉，伸展四方。

2.奥西曼提斯（王佐良译）

客自海外归，曾见沙漠古国

有石像半毁，唯余巨腿

蹲立沙砾间。像头旁落，

半遭沙埋，但人面依然可畏，

那冷笑，那发号施令的高傲，

足见雕匠看透了主人的内心，

才把那石头刻得神情维肖，

而刻像的手和像主的心

早成灰烬。像座上大字在目：

“吾乃万王之王是也，

盖世功业，敢叫天公折服！”

此外无一物，但见废墟周围，

寂寞平沙空莽莽，

伸向荒凉的四方。

“Ozymandias” is a sonnet, a fourteen-line poem metered in iambic pentameter:

The rhyme scheme is ABABACDCEDEFEF

The speaker recalls having met a traveler “from an antique land,”who told him a story about the ruins of a statue in the desert of his native country. Two vast legs of stone stand without a body, and near them a massive, crumbling stone head lies: “half sunk” in the sand. The traveler told the speaker that the frown and “sneer of cold command”on the statue’s face indicate that sculptor understood well the passions of the statue’s subject, a man who sneered with contempt for those weaker than himself, yet fed his people because of something in his heart. (“the hand that mocked them and the heart that fed”). On the pedestal of the statue appear the words: “my name is Ozymandis, king of kings:/ look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!” but around the decaying ruin of the statue, nothing remains, only the “lone and level sands,” which stretch out around it, far away.

Framing the sonnet as a story told to the speaker by “a traveler from an antique land”enables Shelley to add another level of obscurity to Ozymandias’s position with regard to the reader---