PART 2

Stanza 1: The poet heard a Scottish girl singing while reaping in the wheat field.

Behold her, single in the field,

Yon solitary Highland Lass!

Reaping and singing by herself;

Stop here, or gently pass!

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,

And sings a melancholy strain;

O listen! for the Vale profound

Is overflowing with the sound.

1. behold: look at

2. Yon: Yonder, over here

3. Highland: 苏格兰西北高原

4. Lass: girl

5. Binds: v. 捆

6. melancholy strain：悲伤得曲调

7. Vale: Valley

The first stanza is about the encounter between poet and maiden. The beginning sentence “Behold her” makes one feel one was there at that moment. Then “stop here, or gently pass” shows the poet is afraid of bothering the singing maiden and hopes to keep the harmonious moment by using the present tense which betrays the poet’s wish for its permanence. The sentence “single in the field” not only presents us a beautiful picture, but shows the poet is extremely cautious in words, which can be seen obviously from the two words “single” and “field”. The boundless land with a little figure in it presents the contrast between humanity and nature as well as the harmony and beauty of the two. Another example, the word “solitary” instead of “lonely” is singled out by the poet. “Solitary” is defined in the dictionary as one willing to spend a lot of time alone, usually because one like being alone, which denotes that the reaper loves working on the farm by herself and the life of tranquility as well as her communication with nature. Therefore, from the word “solitary”, one can see the poet’s passion for nature and longing for the pastorally rural life, and one’s soul can only be purified by such a life.

翻译：

你看！那高原上年轻的姑娘，

独自一人正在田野上。

一边收割，一边在歌唱。

请你站住，或者悄悄走过！

池独自在那里又割又捆

她唱的音调好不凄凉

你听!你听她的歌声

在深邃的峡谷久久回荡。

Stanza 2: The poet is surprised to hear such a beautiful song in so remote a place.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt

More welcome notes to weary bands

Of travellers in some shady haunt,

Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard

In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,

Breaking the silence of the seas

Among the farthest Hebrides.

1. Nightingale: a bird good at singing

2. chaunt: chant

3. welcome notes: 可爱的音符

4. bands: group

5. shady haunt: where travelers take a rest under the trees

6. Arabian sands: deserts in most of the Arabian Peninsula

7. thrilling: 动人的

8. ne’er：never

9. Cuckoo-bird: herald of spring, coming in April and leaving in August

10. Breaking the silence of the seas

Among the farthest Hebrides. : In Spring people on the Hebrides, people are excited to hear the cuckoo’s song after a long winter’s silence.

Two images are used in the second stanza. One is the Nightingale and Cuckoo, whose sounds bring the poet unspeakable happiness and makes him forget the sadness of worldly society. The other is the desert and sea, which means that the maiden’s singing is omnipresent in nature. The poet imagines, on hearing the wonderful song, that exhausted travelers in the desert will be cheered up and go on their hard journey again; on hearing the song, the sprays of the sea will dance to it.

翻译：

在荒凉的阿拉伯沙漠里，

疲意的旅人憩息在绿阴旁

夜莺在这时嘀呖啼啭，

也不如这歌声暖人心房；

在最遥远的赫伯利群岛，

杜鹍声声唤醒了春光，

啼破了海上辽阔的沉寂，

也不如这歌声动人心肠。

Stanza 3: The poet doesn’t understand her song but knows it is about something sad.

Will no one tell me what she sings?—

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow

For old, unhappy, far-off things,

And battles long ago:

Or is it some more humble lay,

Familiar matter of today?

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,

That has been, and may be again?

1. plaintive: sad

2. numbers: 音符

3. flow: Her song is like water.

4. far: long time ago

5. humble lay: 低俗的小调

In the third stanza, the poet naturally turns his description to the content of song by asking a rhetoric question. Such words as “old”, “today” and “again” show the past, the present and future in her song. Language in this stanza is simple, natural and commonplace, as the poet suggests that words from daily life are even more meaningful and philosophical than those other magnificent ones.

翻译：

谁能告诉我她在唱些什么？

也许她在为过去哀伤,

唱的是渺远的不幸的往事,

和那很久以前的战场？

也许她唱的是普通的曲子

当今的生活习以为常？

她唱生活中的忧伤和痛苫

从前发生过,今后也这样？

Stanza 4: The poet was so moved by her song that he could never forget it.

Whate’er the theme, the Maiden sang

As if her song could have no ending;

I saw her singing at her work,

And o’er the sickle bending;—

I listened, motionless and still;

And, as I mounted up the hill,

The music in my heart I bore,

Long after it was heard no more.

1. Whate’er: Whatever

2. Maiden: girl

3. no ending: 余音绕梁三日不绝

4. o’er: over

5. I listened, motionless and still: The poet was carried away by her song and almost forgot his journey.

6. I mounted up: 登上

7. The music in my heart I bore: I bore the music in my heart.

8. Long after it was heard no more: The solitary reaper’s song left an unforgetable impression on the poet’s mind.

The last stanza, in view of structure, corresponds to the first stanza. For example, the ending sentence “And as I mounted up the hill, the music in my heart I bore, long after it was heard no more.” “in my heart” contrasts with the first sentence “Behold her, single in the field” , in which the sudden encounter of nature and humanity touches the bottom of the poet’s heart so that the beauty in heaven, human being and soul are presented at that moment.

翻译：

不论姑娘在唱些什么吧,

歌声好像永无尽头一样

我见她举着镰刀弯下腰去

我见她边干活儿边歌唱。

我凝神屏息地听着,听着,

直到我登上高高的山冈

那乐声虽早已在耳边消失,

却仍长久地留在我的心上。

Theme

“The Solitary Reaper” is a ballad by English Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and one of his best-known works in English literature. In it, Wordsworth describes in the first person, present tense, how he is amazed and moved by a Scottish Highlands girl who sings as she reaps grain in a solitary field. Composed in 1805, the poem was first published in Poems, in Two Volumes (1807). Each of its four stanzas is eight lines long and written in iambic tetrameter, with a rhyme scheme of a-b-a-b-c-c-d-d, though in the first and last stanzas the “A” rhyme is off.

“The Solitary Reaper” is one of Wordsworth’s most famous post-Lyrical Ballads lyrics. The words of the reaper’s song are incomprehensible to the speaker, so his attention is free to focus on the tone, expressive beauty, and the blissful mood it creates in him. The poem functions to “praise the beauty of music and its fluid expressive beauty, the ‘spontaneous overflow of powerful emotion’ that Wordsworth identified at the heart of poetry”.

Figures of Speech

• 反衬 用夜莺和杜鹃反衬少女歌声的优美

• 暗喻 、通感 声音在作者眼中 变为有形的事物

• 呼语 BEHOLD HER /O LISTEN

• 反复 同源词反复

• 类比 少女的歌声与夜莺和杜鹃的歌唱 诗人与旅人及赫布里群岛

• 象征 MOUNT UP THE HILL 象征着人生的旅途

• 反问

语言特点

语言十分简朴，诗意明白易懂，但它清新自然，意境优美，如一幅画，一幅有声有色的画。

意象

视觉意象(visual image)：single in the field, motionless and still, o’er the sickle bending等；

动觉意象(kinaesthetic image)：reaping and singing，stop here or gently pass, cuts and binds, breaking the silence, mounted up the hill等；

听觉意象(auditory image)：sings a melancholy strain, overflowing with the sound, welcome notes, plaintive numbers flow, humble lay, song, music等。