LEONARD COHEN MAKES IT DARKER (Part One)

At eighty-two, the troubadour has another album coming. Like him, it is obsessed with mortality, God-infused, and funny.

原文: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/17/leonard-cohen-makes-it-darker

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导语：
这是Leonard Cohen系列的第一部分，文章从科恩（Cohen）未成为歌手之前开始讲起。1960年的时候，科恩还是一名诗人和小说家，从伦敦一个人去到了希腊的九头蛇岛上，在那儿继续自己的文学创作，并遇到了这一部分的女主人公玛丽安（Marianne），虽然她已是一个小孩儿的母亲且婚姻不幸，但上帝安排了两个人的相遇并迅速坠入了爱河。直至，1967年科恩推出自己的第一张专辑的时候，玛丽安才正式成为了所有科恩歌迷心目中永远的缪斯女神。文章后半部分回到现在，即玛丽安和科恩相继去世之前的最后联系，结尾以玛丽安朋友给科恩的回信（email）结束，为这一段长达半个多世纪的唯美爱情甚至享亲情一样的关系画上了圆满的句号。

[1] When Leonard Cohen was twenty-five, he was living in London, sitting in cold rooms writing sad poems. He got by on a three-thousand-dollar grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. This was 1960, long before he played the festival at the Isle of Wight in front of six hundred thousand people. In those days, he was a Jamesian Jew, the provincial abroad, a refugee from the Montreal literary scene. Cohen, whose family was both prominent and cultivated, had an ironical view of himself. He was a bohemian with a cushion whose first purchases in London were an Olivetti typewriter and a blue raincoat at Burberry. Even before he had much of an audience, he had a distinct idea of the audience he wanted. In a letter to his publisher, he said that he was out to reach “inner-directed adolescents, lovers in all degrees of anguish, disappointed Platonists, pornography-peepers, hair-handed monks and Popists.”

词汇词组：
1） Grant/ɡrænt/：补助金，拨款
例：He has been awarded a research grant.
2） Bohemian/boʊˈhiːmiən/：波希米亚人或者理解成放荡不羁的人
3） Anguish/ˈæŋɡwɪʃ/：极度的痛苦
例：He suffered the anguish of watching his son go to prison.
重难点句：
In those days, he was a Jamesian Jew, the provincial abroad, a refugee from the Montreal literary scene. Cohen, whose family was both prominent and cultivated, had an ironical view of himself. He was a bohemian with a cushion whose first purchases in London were an Olivetti typewriter and a blue raincoat at Burberry.
在这些日子里，他是一个拥护亨瑞詹姆斯哲学的犹太人，一个在海外漂泊的守旧者，一个来自蒙特利尔文学圈的难民。科恩的家世非常显赫且都受到过良好的教育，但他却对自己有着讽刺般的认识。他是一个带着垫子的放浪不羁的人，他在伦敦买的第一件物品就是一个Olivetti牌子的打字机和一件Burberry牌子的蓝雨衣。
分析：首先我们要了解Jameian的意思，它指的是和henry james相关的个性特点或哲学，那么henry james又是何许人也？他是american-born british writer，19就是后半叶世界级的大文豪，同性恋，被认为是心理分析小说的开创者之一，也是20世纪小说的意识流写作技巧的先驱。Leonard应该是受他的文学作品影响很大，所以才会被称为jamesian Jew。后面的provincial abroad，provincial指的是一种人，原理首都或者市中心，对都市时尚的东西不感兴趣的人。接下来的literary scene就相对来说比较好理解一点了，它指的是文学圈子，scene有什么场合氛围圈子的意思。接下来prominent，有名望的，有声望的意思，prominent family，名门望族，cultivated，有知识有文化的概念，受过良好的教育，这两个形容词还是很重要的，要记住。后面提到he was a bohemian with a cushion，bohemian波希米亚人或者理解为放浪不羁的人，自由自在的生活状态，一般情况下我们理解的bohemian都是对艺术有追求生活极简的状态，但是文章中提到了with a cushion，带着垫子就和后面讲到买了名牌打字机和雨衣对应了，他并没有完完全全的脱离社会，还是很讲究生活质量的。

[2] Cohen was growing weary of London’s rising damp and its gray skies. An English dentist had just yanked one of his wisdom teeth. After weeks of cold and rain, he wandered into a bank and asked the teller about his deep suntan. The teller said that he had just returned from a trip to Greece. Cohen bought an airline ticket.

词汇词组：
1） Yank /jæŋk/：用力一拽/一拉/一甩
例：She yanked her hand away.
重难点句：
Cohen was growing weary of London’s rising damp and its gray skies. An English dentist had just yanked one of his wisdom teeth.
科恩逐渐厌倦了伦敦不断增加的湿气和灰暗的天空。一个英国牙医刚刚拔掉了一颗他的智齿。
分析：weary在这儿和tired的意思是一样的，grow weary of sth或者是be weary of sth就是厌倦了什么东西的意思。Damp表示微微的潮湿的意思。Yank这个单词有用力一拽/一拉或者一甩的意思，在这儿我们理解为拔牙，而wisdom teeth就是智齿的概念了。

[3] Not long afterward, he alighted in Athens, visited the Acropolis, made his way to the port of Piraeus, boarded a ferry, and disembarked at the island of Hydra. With the chill barely out of his bones, Cohen took in the horseshoe-shaped harbor and the people drinking cold glasses of retsina and eating grilled fish in the cafés by the water; he looked up at the pines and the cypress trees and the whitewashed houses that crept up the hillsides. There was something mythical and primitive about Hydra. Cars were forbidden. Mules humped water up the long stairways to the houses. There was only intermittent electricity. Cohen rented a place for fourteen dollars a month. Eventually, he bought a whitewashed house of his own, for fifteen hundred dollars, thanks to an inheritance from his grandmother.

词汇词组：
1） Alight /əˈlaɪt/：到达，着陆
例：Several birds alighted on the branches of the tree.
2） Disembark /ˌdɪsɪmˈbɑːrk/：下飞机/下船；登陆/上岸
例：We will be disembarking at midday.
3） Primitive /ˈprɪmətɪv/：原始的
例：The facilities on the campsite were very primitive.
4） Intermittent /ˌɪntərˈmɪtənt/：间歇性的
例：A day of intermittent rainstorms followed.
5） Inheritance /ɪnˈherɪtəns/：继承
例：She spent all her inheritance in a year.
重难点句：
Not long afterward, he alighted in Athens, visited the Acropolis, made his way to the port of Piraeus, boarded a ferry, and disembarked at the island of Hydra. With the chill barely out of his bones, Cohen took in the horseshoe-shaped harbor and the people drinking cold glasses of retsina and eating grilled fish in the cafés by the water; he looked up at the pines and the cypress trees and the whitewashed houses that crept up the hillsides.
不久之后，他就抵达了雅典，参观了雅典的卫城，又一路来到比雷艾夫斯港口，坐上一艘渡轮，登上了九头蛇岛。身上的寒意还没有完全褪尽，他就把马蹄型的港湾和在海边吃烤鱼喝香松葡萄酒的人们尽收眼底。他抬头看见了山上的松树和柏树，以及涂着白漆的房子，它们都沿着山体一排排下来。
分析：在这一段里有几个单词是要重点学会认识的，句式并不复杂。Alight in someplace，到达，抵达某个地方。Acropolis，雅典的卫城，这个词可以记一下，接下来，make one’s way to somewhere，也同样表达某人到了什么地方。Board这个单词主要表示的意思就是上船或者是上飞机的意思，ferry表示的是渡轮，在这儿补充一个表达，我们去游乐场里玩儿的摩天轮的英文表达式ferry wheels。接下来，disembark，表达的是登陆。这几个词还是蛮重要的，用不习惯但至少要认识。接下来，with the chill barely out of his bone, chill表示寒冷寒意的概念，barely是几乎不的意思，表示否定，也就是说含义还没有完全褪去，科恩就took in了一堆东西，take in表示游览或者尽收眼底的意思。后文中harbor和people是并列做了took in的宾语，当然，这两个词都有定语修饰，retsina是一种希腊特产的香松葡萄酒，grilled是个形容词，要注意，它表示烧烤的，grilled fish，烤鱼。By the water在海边，注意，在这儿要用介词by。后面的pine表示松树，cypress trees表示柏树。Whitewashed就是涂着白漆的，crept up被动式的后置定语来修饰前面提到的树和房子，表示沿着山体爬上去的感觉。

[4] Hydra promised the life Cohen had craved: spare rooms, the empty page, eros after dark. He collected a few paraffin lamps and some used furniture: a Russian wrought-iron bed, a writing table, chairs like “the chairs that van Gogh painted.” During the day, he worked on a sexy, phantasmagoric novel called “The Favorite Game” and the poems in a collection titled “Flowers for Hitler.” He alternated between extreme discipline and the varieties of abandon. There were days of fasting to concentrate the mind. There were drugs to expand it: pot, speed, acid. “I took trip after trip, sitting on my terrace in Greece, waiting to see God,” he said years later. “Generally, I ended up with a bad hangover.”

词汇词组：
1） Crave /kreɪv/：想要什么
例：She has always craved excitement.
2） Fast：禁食，斋戒
重难点句：
During the day, he worked on a sexy, phantasmagoric novel called “The Favorite Game” and the poems in a collection titled “Flowers for Hitler.” He alternated between extreme discipline and the varieties of abandon. There were days of fasting to concentrate the mind. There were drugs to expand it: pot, speed, acid.
白天的时候，他写一部叫做《最喜欢的游戏》的情爱玄幻小说以及一部叫做《给希特勒的鲜花》的诗集。他会在极度的自律和各种颓废之间转换，有的时候，他会禁食来让自己集中精力，有的时候他也会通过毒品来去放松，比如大麻迷魂药等。
分析：这一段中phantasmagoric，玄幻的幽灵的，这个词逼格太高，没必要记，认识就好，后面的一个小说一个诗集，poems in a collection，诗集的意思，一个用到了called，另一个为了避免重复，作者用titled，这个词很好，要会用，下次你在表达这个东西叫什么的时候，sth titled就很好。Alternate，表示转换或者变换选择的意思，后文中提到的fasting是动名词表示禁食，to concentrate the mind表达的是集中注意力。最后面pot，speed和acid都是街头语言或者是俚语中毒品的意思。

[5] Here and there, Cohen caught glimpses of a beautiful Norwegian woman. Her name was Marianne Ihlen, and she had grown up in the countryside near Oslo. Her grandmother used to tell her, “You are going to meet a man who speaks with a tongue of gold.” She thought she already had: Axel Jensen, a novelist from home, who wrote in the tradition of Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs. She had married Jensen, and they had a son, little Axel. Jensen was not a constant husband, however, and, by the time their child was four months old, Jensen was, as Marianne put it, “over the hills again” with another woman.

重难点句：
Here and there, Cohen caught glimpses of a beautiful Norwegian woman.
在某些个地方，科恩见到了一个美丽的挪威女人。
分析：here and there，本身表达的是各处的意思，在这儿我们可以具体意象化的理解为，在某些个地方。Caught glimpses of sth表达看见了或者瞥见了什么，因为前文提到了here and there，指的不仅是一个地方，所以后文就用了glimpses复数。
You are going to meet a man who speaks with a tongue of gold
你会遇到一个口吐金莲的男人
分析：a man who speaks with a tongue of gold, 表达的是出口成章口齿伶俐，外加文采飞扬的感觉，英语里心地善良或者热心肠的表达式a man with a heart of gold, 可千万不能记错，很多人会以为是a golden heart，这就有点chinglish了。

[6] One spring day, Ihlen was with her infant son in a grocery store and café. “I was standing in the shop with my basket waiting to pick up bottled water and milk,” she recalled decades later, on a Norwegian radio program. “He is standing in the doorway with the sun behind him.” Cohen asked her to join him and his friends outside. He was wearing khaki pants, sneakers, a shirt with rolled sleeves, and a cap. The way Marianne remembered it, he seemed to radiate “enormous compassion for me and my child.” She was taken with him. “I felt it throughout my body,” she said. “A lightness had come over me.”

词汇词组：
1） Khaki /ˈkɑːki/：卡其色
2） Radiate /ˈreɪdieɪt/：散发
例：the energy that seemed to radiate from her
3） Compassion /kəmˈpæʃn/：同情，怜悯
例：She was known as a hard woman with no compassion, no emotion.
重难点句：
He was wearing khaki pants, sneakers, a shirt with rolled sleeves, and a cap. The way Marianne remembered it, he seemed to radiate “enormous compassion for me and my child.” She was taken with him.
他下身穿着卡其色的裤子，运动鞋，上身穿着卷起袖子的T恤，还戴着一顶帽子。那是玛丽安记忆中的模样，他似乎散发着对我和我的孩子的怜悯。我完全迷上了他。
分析：这一句话没有难词，但要会用radiate这个词，表示散发着，另外the way Marianne remembered it是一个定语从句来修饰the way。后面的enormous compassion，表示巨大的同情和怜悯。最后面be taken with sth or sb, 表示的是被什么迷住。

[7] Cohen had known some success with women. He would know a great deal more. For a troubadour of sadness—“the godfather of gloom,” he was later called—Cohen found frequent respite in the arms of others. As a young man, he had a kind of Michael Corleone Before the Fall look, sloe-eyed, dark, a little hunched, but high courtesy and verbal fluency were his charm. When he was thirteen, he read a book on hypnotism. He tried out his new discipline on the family housekeeper, and she took off her clothes. Not everyone over the years was quite as bewitched. Nico spurned him, and Joni Mitchell, who had once been his lover, remained a friend but dismissed him as a “boudoir poet.” But these were the exceptions.

词汇词组：
1） Troubadour /ˈtruːbədɔːr/：云游诗人
2） Sloe-eyed：形容眼睛又黑又大
3） Hunched /ˈhʌntʃt/：驼背的
例：He sat hunched over his breakfast.
4） Bewitched /bɪˈwɪtʃt/：着迷的，着魔的
5） Dismiss /dɪsˈmɪs/：拒绝否定；让…离开
例：She claims she was unfairly dismissed from her post.
重难点句：
For a troubadour of sadness—“the godfather of gloom,” he was later called—Cohen found frequent respite in the arms of others. As a young man, he had a kind of Michael Corleone Before the Fall look, sloe-eyed, dark, a little hunched, but high courtesy and verbal fluency were his charm.
对于一个悲伤的云游诗人——他后来被称作“忧郁教父”，科恩发现他总能在别人的怀抱中找到不断地缓解。作为一个年轻的小伙子，他有着像迈克尔柯里昂一样的长相，又黑又大的眼睛，有一点驼背，但是他有礼貌的举止和伶俐的口齿才是他真正的魅力所在。
分析：troubadour，云游诗人的意思，godfather of gloom，后来就开始有人这么叫他了，但并不知道是谁最开始给他起的这个称号，respite表示对是缓解的意思。后文中提到的michael Corleone，是一个虚构出来的角色在教父系列的电影里有出现，年轻时候的科恩长的确实很像阿尔帕西诺，他演的michael Corleone这个角色。Hunched这个词要认识，驼背的意思，courtesy表示的是有礼貌的举止。

[8] Leonard began spending more and more time with Marianne. They went to the beach, made love, kept house. Once, when they were apart—Marianne and Axel in Norway, Cohen in Montreal scraping up some money—he sent her a telegram: “Have house all I need is my woman and her son. Love, Leonard.”

词汇词组：
1） Scrape up：收集，把什么集中在一起；筹钱
重难点句：
Once, when they were apart—Marianne and Axel in Norway, Cohen in Montreal scraping up some money—he sent her a telegram: “Have house all I need is my woman and her son. Love, Leonard.”
有一次，他们又分开两地，玛丽安和Axel在挪威，科恩在蒙特利尔筹一些钱，他给玛丽安发了一份电报，“我有房子了，但我想在只想要我的女人和她的孩子。爱你，Leonard”
分析：这一部分最让人迷惑的就是电报的内容了，我自己也在想，也问了好几个朋友老师的意见，最终才决定这样翻译。首先我们要了解到电报语体，过去发电报都是按字收费的，所以能多简单就多简单，不像现在微信电话随便搞，过去电报时代字字珍贵，所以结合前文说科恩已经用祖母留下的遗产买了一套房子，而且这个电报内容不难看出来是为了表达思念之情相思之苦，所以应该是我有房子了，所以我现在只想要我的女人和他的孩子。

[9] There were times of separation, times of argument and jealousy. When Marianne drank, she could go into a dark rage. And there were infidelities on both sides. (“Good gracious. All the girls were panting for him,” Marianne recalled. “I would dare go as far as to say that I was on the verge of killing myself due to it.”)

词汇词组：
1） Rage /reɪdʒ/：暴怒，愤怒
例：Sue stormed out of the room in a rage.
2） Infidelity /ˌɪnfɪˈdeləti/：对另一半的不忠
3） Pant for：渴望，想要
例：I pant for the music which is divine.
4） On the verge of：在….边缘；马上就要
例：They are on the verge of signing a new contract.
重难点句：
“Good gracious. All the girls were panting for him,” Marianne recalled. “I would dare go as far as to say that I was on the verge of killing myself due to it.”
“天呐！所有的女孩儿都想要他，”玛丽安回忆道。“我甚至都可以说我因为这个都到了濒临自杀的边缘。”
分析：good gracious，是口语中的一种表达，和good heaven，oh boy的意思是一样的，表示惊叹。Pant for sth就是想要什么渴望得到什么。Dare go as far as to say, 表达一种程度，甚至都可以说的意思。后面的on the verge of sth指的是在什么的边缘或是很接近什么。Due to sth就等于because of sth, 因为什么，由于什么。

[10] In the mid-sixties, as Cohen started to record his songs and win worldly success, Marianne became known to his fans as that antique figure—the muse. A memorable photograph of her, dressed only in a towel, and sitting at the desk in the house on Hydra, appeared on the back of Cohen’s second album, “Songs from a Room.” But, after they’d been together for eight years, the relationship came apart, little by little—“like falling ashes,” as Cohen put it.

词汇词组：
1） Antique/ænˈtiːk/：古董；古时候的

[11] Cohen was spending more time away from Hydra pursuing his career. Marianne and Axel stayed on awhile on Hydra, then left for Norway. Eventually, Marianne married again. But life had its burdens, particularly for Axel, who has had persistent health problems. What Cohen’s fans knew of Marianne was her beauty and what it had inspired: “Bird on the Wire,” “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye,” and, most of all, “So Long, Marianne.” She and Cohen stayed in touch. When he toured in Scandinavia, she visited him backstage. They exchanged letters and e-mails. When they spoke to journalists and to friends of their love affair, it was always in the fondest terms.

词汇词组：
1） Persistent/pərˈsɪstənt/：持续发生的；坚持的
例：I can’t take much more of this persistent criticism.
重难点句：
What Cohen’s fans knew of Marianne was her beauty and what it had inspired: “Bird on the Wire,” “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye,” and, most of all, “So Long, Marianne.”
科恩的歌迷所了解的玛丽安只是她的美貌和这美貌所激发的灵感，也就是这些音乐作品：《电线杆上的鸟》，《嘿，这没法说再见》，以及最重要的那首歌《再见了，玛丽安》
分析：句子的主语是一个从句，what Cohen’s fans knew of Marianne, know of sth表达的是了解什么，整个句子的宾语是一个并列，her beauty and what it had inspired. 要注意的是，文中是it，这个it 应该指代的是her beauty，而不是marianne。

[12] In late July this year, Cohen received an e-mail from Jan Christian Mollestad, a close friend of Marianne’s, saying that she was suffering from cancer. In their last communication, Marianne had told Cohen that she had sold her beach house to help insure that Axel would be taken care of, but she never mentioned that she was sick. Now, it appeared, she had only a few days left. Cohen wrote back immediately:

Well Marianne, it’s come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine. And you know that I’ve always loved you for your beauty and your wisdom, but I don’t need to say anything more about that because you know all about that. But now, I just want to wish you a very good journey. Goodbye old friend. Endless love, see you down the road.

重难点句：
In their last communication, Marianne had told Cohen that she had sold her beach house to help insure that Axel would be taken care of, but she never mentioned that she was sick.
在他们最后一次通话中，玛丽安告诉 科恩她把她海边的房子买了来保证将来Axel能被照顾好，但是她从来都没有提到过自己生病了。
分析：这一部分并没有什么难度，但大家要注意一下时态的应用，是过去完成时，表示发生在过去的过去，insure that Axel would be taken care of, 这是一个被动式的表达，注意这个地方of不能省去，常见的陈述句的语序是take care of sb。

[13] Two days later, Cohen got an e-mail from Norway:

[14]
Dear Leonard

Marianne slept slowly out of this life yesterday evening. Totally at ease, surrounded by close friends.

Your letter came when she still could talk and laugh in full consciousness. When we read it aloud, she smiled as only Marianne can. She lifted her hand, when you said you were right behind, close enough to reach her.

It gave her deep peace of mind that you knew her condition. And your blessing for the journey gave her extra strength. . . . In her last hour I held her hand and hummed “Bird on the Wire,” while she was breathing so lightly. And when we left the room, after her soul had flown out of the window for new adventures, we kissed her head and whispered your everlasting words.

So long, Marianne . . .

重难点句：
Your letter came when she still could talk and laugh in full consciousness. When we read it aloud, she smiled as only Marianne can. She lifted her hand, when you said you were right behind, close enough to reach her.
你的信到的时候，他还可以甚至完全清醒的交谈说笑。当我们大声把信读出来的时候，她笑了，那是只有玛丽安才有的微笑。当读到你说你会在她身旁时，离她很近触及到她时，玛丽安举起她的手。
分析：这一段文字也不难都是信件的语体，比较口语化方便理解。三次出现的when都引导了时间状语从句表示当什么的时候。In full consciousness，指的是意识完全清醒的意思。后文中的she smile as only Marianne can.中的as表示按照什么样的方式或者翻译成如同都行，是连词，而文中的翻译我们就要结合语境，她笑起来了，如同只有玛丽安才拥有的微笑。

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