谈谈死亡的话题
今天我想谈一下关于死亡的话题。
众所周知，在中国的文化传统和观念里，死亡一直是一个禁忌的话题。但是，禁忌归禁忌，禁忌不代表不存在，甚至我们每个人的最终归宿都是死亡。
我一直记得青春时代读三毛的故事，读的那叫一个惊心动魄的震撼。她在失去荷西后，痛不欲生。用手指不停去挖荷西坟地的泥土，直挖的十指鲜血淋漓。还有那句著名的诗：可怜无定河边骨，犹是春闺梦里人。也是从三毛的文字里第一次读到的。
琼瑶当时力劝三毛不要自杀，并逼她许诺一定要活着。可是，三毛最后还是死于自杀。而若干年后，琼瑶居然也步了后尘，选择了自杀。举世皆惊，毕竟她25个亿的财产摆在那里，是多少人梦寐以求拼尽一生而不可得的富贵啊！可是，终究也替补不了一个“爱人”的价值吗？
我深感困惑。虽则痛失爱人万念俱灰，可真正要对自己痛下杀手，那是怎样残忍的一件事啊！生命如此美好，怎舍得与之挥手告别？
直到我读到一首英文诗：An invite to eternity. 我仿佛突然明白了。也许人到了一定时间，会自愿主动坦然赴死的吧！毕竟人到了老年，生命的酸甜苦辣爱恨情仇全都品尝过，活够了，也就纵死无憾了。生命本就是一场体验而已。
只是死亡会是一种什么感觉呢？
让我们先来读这首“An invite to eternity"吧！（前两个段落由我本人操刀翻译，后两段有请AI智能翻译版本）
An Invite to Eternity by John Clare
1793 –1864
永恒之邀
Wilt thou go with me sweet maid
Say maiden wilt thou go with me
Through the valley-depths of shade,
Of night and dark obscurity,
Where the path has lost its way
Where the sun forgets the day
Where there’s nor life nor light to see
Sweet maiden, wilt thou go with me?
甜蜜的女士，可愿与我而去
说，女士愿与我而去
一起穿越阴影黑夜幽暗的峡谷
那里道路无路可走
那里太阳忘却了白昼
那里没有生命无光可见
甜蜜的女士，可愿与我前往？
Where stones will turn to flooding streams
Where plains will rise like ocean waves
Where life will fade like visioned dreams
And mountains darken into caves
Say maiden wilt thou go with me
Through this sad non-identity
Where parents live and are forgot
And sisters live and know us not?
那里石头将化作流淌的溪流
平原一如海洋潮汐涌起
那里生命如梦幻般消褪
山川已暗成洞穴
说，女士你愿与我而去
依着忧伤的无身份状态
那里父母尚存但已遗忘
那里姊妹健在却不知晓我们
Say maiden wilt thou go with me
In this strange death of life to be
To live in death and be the same
Without this life, or home, or name
At once to be, and not to be
That was, and is not—yet to see
Things pass like shadows—and the sky
Above, below, around us lie?
姑娘，你可愿随我启程？
这活死人的奇异国境，我们同去穿行
死里偷生，模样始终如一
不必再要这俗世人生，不必要故土姓名
半存半灭，游走在虚实边境
那已经消逝的过往，仍能在眼底现形
万物皆如浮影掠过，只剩长空
笼着我们，在上下四方静静飘零？
The land of shadows wilt thou trace
And look—nor know each other’s face,
The present mixed with reasons gone
And past, and present all as one.
Say, maiden can thy life be led
To join the living to the dead?
Then trace thy footsteps on with me
We’re wed to one eternity.
你可愿将这阴影国的路走遍
纵使对面相见，也认不出故人眉眼
此刻混着早已远去的前尘旧事
过去和现在，终要揉作同一块石岩
姑娘啊，你可愿把你的一生交托
随生者踏入死亡的漩涡？
那就循着我的脚印向前走
我们早已结为连理，共归那不朽永恒。
这真的是一首奇特的诗。一般都是邀约姑娘出去约会享乐，没有人邀约一同去死。
对于此诗，有多种解读。这里引用一段我认为最为贴切合理的诗评：
source
I’ve been reading a fair bit of John Clare lately. I keep coming back to ‘An Invite to Eternity’. It’s a poem I identify with greatly, remembering experiences of going through a complete dissolution of any sense of identity, where even recalling your own name is impossible.
Alongside Clare’s description of the loss of identity is a yearning for a soulmate to share life’s journey. The persistent refrain is perhaps a calling to a gentler, feminine side of the poets’ own nature to join him on the journey. He is absorbed, taken over by the wonder, the magic and the beauty of being lost in every sense, yet still there is a part of him that is looking for comfort.
It is a poem about the fragmenting of the mind that comes with loss; but also contains some bigger ideas of the extraordinary power of the imagination to transform the natural world and create grandeur from the smallest thing.
I’ve read commentaries on this poem which interpret it as a reflection on torment, hell and the pain of an unrequited love. But I don’t read it as a pessimistic poem in the sense that he is describing, with great beauty, what we all pass through moving from life to death. Whilst identity fades with its loss comes something magnificent and mysterious that Clare is embracing. The power of that beauty and the sense in which it is something he has chosen, is expressed in the rigid, perfect structure of eight line stanzas made of rhyming couplets, that hold the poem together.
There is something very liberating about being able “to be and not to be”; a recognition of the fragility of the ego, which can change so suddenly and dramatically in the face of the circumstances of life.