Sonnets of William Shakespeare-Sonnet 68
Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,
When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,
Before the bastard signs of fair were born,
Or durst inhabit on a living brow;
Before the golden tresses of the dead,
The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,
To live a second life on second head;
Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay:
In him those holy antique hours are seen,
Without all ornament, itself and true,
Making no summer of another's green,
Robbing no old to dress his beauty new;
And him as for a map doth Nature store,
To show false Art what beauty was of yore.
这样,他的朱颜是古代的图志,
那时美开了又谢像今天花一样,
那时冒牌的艳色还未曾出世,
或未敢公然高据活人的额上,
那时死者的美发,坟墓的财产,
还未被偷剪下来,去活第二回
在第二个头上②;那时美的死金鬟
还未被用来使别人显得华贵:
这圣洁的古代在他身上呈现,
赤裸裸的真容,毫无一点铅华,
不用别人的青翠做他的夏天,
不掠取旧脂粉妆饰他的鲜花;
就这样造化把他当图志珍藏,
让假艺术赏识古代美的真相。
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