The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.–Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
--The World is Too Much With Us,William Wordsworth(1789)
这世界让我们实在难受,
朝朝暮暮,获取,消耗,
白费我们的力气和精神;
但自然中属于我们的却寥若晨星。
我们已耗尽心血,
却只得到一份可悲的馈赠!
大海对明月敞开了胸怀,
狂风哟,却呼啸不停。
此刻,屏息无声像沉沉入睡的花朵,
面对这一切,我们格格不入,貌合神离。
全能的上帝哟,它感动不了我们。
我宁愿是个旧教规浸透的异教徒,
站在令人心旷神怡的草原上,
可以领略大自然的风光,
我不再感到孤苦伶仃。
我看见普罗托斯*从大海中冉冉升起,
我听到特里顿**吹响了螺号声声!
*海王星座的海神 **另一海神
--华兹华斯《这世界让我们实在难受》黄新渠译
Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of “world history,” but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die. One might invent such a fable, and yet he still would not have adequately illustrated how miserable, how shadowy and transient, how aimless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature. There were eternities during which it did not exist.
And when it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened. For this intellect has no additional mission which would lead it beyond human life. Rather, it is human, and only its possessor and begetter takes it so solemnly-as though the world’s axis turned within it. But if we could communicate with the gnat, we would learn that he likewise flies through the air with the same solemnity, that he feels the flying center of the universe within himself. There is nothing so reprehensible and unimportant in nature that it would not immediately swell up like a balloon at the slightest puff of this power of knowing.
从前,在被分散为数不清的闪闪发光的星际的宇宙的某个偏僻的角落,有一颗星球,在其上聪明的野兽发明了认知。那是"世界史"最傲慢自大,虚假的一分钟,然而那也仅仅是一分钟。待大自然深吸了几口气后,这颗星球冷却凝结,聪明的野兽也不得不死了。一个人也许能创造像这样的寓言,但他仍然不足以说明人类智力在大自然中看起来是何等可悲,模糊,短暂,无方向,反复无常。在无穷无尽的时间里它甚至都不存在。
当人类智力告终,什么都不会发生。因为这种智力没有额外的使命带领它超越人类生活。恰恰相反,是人类,也只有它的拥有者和生父母如此郑重地看待它--就好像这个世界的中心在里面一样。但如果我们能与这蚊蝇交流,我们会发现他以相同的庄严飞在空中,他觉得宇宙的飞行中心就在他自己。自然界中没有比这更应受斥责,无意义的了--气球不会因为认知力极轻的一口气就迅速膨胀。
- On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense, Friedrich Nietzsche (1873)
重金属继承了这种冲突,因为为了要"重",它必须对付人人都怕的黑暗议题。这些议题黑暗是因为我们的常规方法不能打败它们。然后我们必须问,我们将什么排除在外了,随之我们看到任何反社会信息--那些可能会冒犯某人,或提及死亡,或提出道德规范是人为强加的条件的--都被排除在我们的方法之外了。结果就是,重金属变得能与强加于现实外部的外衣相匹敌,并且在看到了现实的恐怖后寻找一种同时对黑暗好战又富启示性的极端和黑暗之美的渴望。
浪漫主义重现是因为它被普遍看作是唯一能与现代主义对抗的思想,它似新古典主义,但更加坚持反对理性主义,以及个人主义与群体思维的杂交--utilitarianism【功利主义(信奉最大多数人的最大幸福)】。金属,作为一种以男性化,好战的方式探索浪漫主义的流派,与尼采和其他想要逃脱用官僚主义方式建立社会,恢复一种冒险欲的后浪漫主义作家的哲学最为接近。
Metal is fantasy that can be applied to reality, neatly briding the two categories of art as entertainment/mimesis and art as politics.【金属是可以被应用于现实艺术的幻想艺术,它利索地将这两种艺术范畴化为娱乐/模拟,将艺术化为政治。】它不是用来抗议的音乐,也不是我们在大多数电视节目里所见,作为平和单一的背景来转移注意力的令人愉悦的消遣。相反,它是一种浮士德式,贪得无厌的渴求被禁知识的表现。它从古典文学和音乐中撷取主题,包括一个人被困在奄奄一息的社会,努力想要摆脱的感受;还有当个体从社会逃回大自然,现实被首次看见的想法。如下是可能和金属歌词最贴近的浪漫主义作家们:
布莱克(William Blake)–作品有关以透视法观宇宙而引出的的玄学话题,以及因软弱和为琐事心神不宁而被嘲弄的人。
弥尔顿(John Milton)–著《失乐园》,其中撒旦是为了自身而探索生命,拒绝天堂规则的非正统派主角。
华兹华斯(William Wordsworth)–他的反社会行为和其摒弃社会,赞美神话想象的经典The World is Too Much With Us同被奉为神圣。
雪莱夫人(Mary Shelley)–著《弗兰肯斯泰因》,其中科技创造了一种新的生命,它发现自己在世上没有地位,于是开始了毁灭。
歌德(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)–一个不躲避恐惧的现实主义作家。歌德相信存在一个宇宙,其中人类感知只是神赐的本领中的一小部分。
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