Walt Whitman

Karen Karbiener, scholar: We're at this incredibly volatile time.

学者凯伦·卡比纳 (Karen Karbiner)：我们正处于这个极其动荡的时期。

The country is divided into two.

国家一分为二。

Allan Gurganus, novelist: And yet there was a kind of listlessness among the population, a passivity and a drift and a cynicism had infected the country.

艾伦·古尔加努斯（Allan Gurganus），小说家：然而，人们中却弥漫着一种无精打采、消极被动、随波逐流和愤世嫉俗的情绪，已经感染了这个国家。

Narrator: As the country slouched toward Civil War in the 1850s, one concerned citizen was trying mightily to wake his countrymen to the dangers of their bitterness and despond.

旁白：当国家在 1850 年代陷入内战时，一位忧心忡忡的公民极力试图唤醒他的同胞，让他们认识到他们的痛苦和沮丧所带来的危险。

He'd already spent his own small treasure to publish a book of poetry called Leaves of Grass .

他已经用自己的一点积蓄出版了一本诗集，名叫《草叶集》。

The American democratic experiment needed saving, he had implored in Leaves , was worth saving.

他在《叶子》中恳求说，美国的民主实验需要挽救，值得挽救。

For his effort, he'd been called "preposterous," "nonsensical," "grotesque," and "scurvy." A lesser man would have been shamed into silence.

由于他的努力，他被称为“荒谬”、“无意义”、“怪诞”和“坏血病”。一个地位低下的人可能会因为羞愧而保持沉默。

Walt Whitman determined to speak louder.

沃尔特·惠特曼决定大声说话。

He was willing to fight the tide all the way, to stand fast against derision, neglect, and the relentless undertow of his own doubt, to sacrifice his financial well being, his family, his personal life and his health — all in the service of forcing America to face its strange new self.

他愿意一路与潮流抗争，坚决反对嘲笑、忽视和自己怀疑的无情暗流，牺牲自己的经济状况、家庭、个人生活和健康——这一切都是为了迫使美国面对它陌生的新自我。

Walt Whitman (as portrayed by actor): Never more shall I escape Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me, Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what there in the night, under the yellow and sagging moon, The messenger there arous'd, the fire, the sweet hell within, The unknown want, the destiny of me.

沃尔特·惠特曼（演员饰演）：我再也不能逃避，我再也不能听到未满足的爱情的呼喊，再也不能让我成为那个夜晚，在下垂的黄色月亮下的那个平静的孩子，那里的信使被唤醒，火焰，内心甜蜜的地狱，未知的渴望，我的命运。

Narrator: America's first great poet entered the world at the margins — on a working class farm on Long Island, New York, into a family that held tight to the promise of the young country.

旁白：美国第一位伟大的诗人在世界的边缘进入世界——在纽约长岛的一个工人阶级农场，进入一个紧紧抓住这个年轻国家的承诺的家庭。

His ancestors, Walt was reminded, had sacrificed blood in the cause of American independence.

沃尔特想起，他的祖先为美国独立事业献出了鲜血。

Ed Folsom, scholar: His brothers who came after him were all named after American heroes.

艾德·福尔瑟姆，学者：他之后的兄弟都以美国英雄的名字命名。

We have George Washington Whitman, and we have Thomas Jefferson Whitman, and we have Andrew Jackson Whitman.

我们有乔治·华盛顿·惠特曼，我们有托马斯·杰斐逊·惠特曼，我们有安德鲁·杰克逊·惠特曼。

So he grew up with George Washington and Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson sitting at his table with him.

所以他和乔治·华盛顿、安德鲁·杰克逊和托马斯·杰斐逊一起长大。

Allan Gurganus, novelist: These were the common people in the literal sense of the word.

艾伦·古尔加努斯（Allan Gurganus），小说家：这些人是字面意义上的普通人。

And the freedom that he found in this lack of pedigree assured his right to choose the person that he wanted to become.

他在这种缺乏血统的情况下找到的自由保证了他选择自己想成为的人的权利。

Betsy Erkkila, writer: He was sensitive and even overly sensitive to what was going on around him, both in terms of people but also a very sensuous interaction with the world.

Betsy Erkkila，作家：他对周围发生的事情很敏感，甚至过度敏感，无论是在人方面，还是与世界的非常感性的互动方面。

And from a very early age he felt himself called to do something with this.

从很小的时候起，他就觉得自己被召唤为此做点什么。

Narrator: As a boy, Walter Whitman Jr. had precious little time to pursue his own dreams.

旁白：小时候，小沃尔特·惠特曼几乎没有时间去追求自己的梦想。

His father was a farmer, a carpenter and an unsuccessful real estate speculator who struggled all his life to keep his wife and eight children afloat.

他的父亲是一名农民、木匠和一名不成功的房地产投机者，他一生都在为养活妻子和八个孩子而奋斗。

He took Walt out of school at age 11 to help prop up the family's meager income.

11 岁时，他让沃尔特辍学，以帮助维持家庭微薄的收入。

The Whitmans' circumstances never lived up to their hopes, and Walter Whitman Sr. became an ever more zealous adherent of strong drink and radical politics.

惠特曼一家的处境从未达到他们的希望，老沃尔特·惠特曼成为了烈酒和激进政治的狂热追随者。

The elder Whitman came to see his growing streak of financial failure as the work of forces beyond his control: banking cabals, organized swindles, and the unchecked power of the propertied class.

老惠特曼逐渐认识到，他日益严重的金融失败是他无法控制的力量造成的：银行阴谋集团、有组织的诈骗以及有产阶级不受限制的权力。

"Keep a good heart," he liked to say.

“保持一颗善良的心，”他喜欢说。

"The worst is yet to come." At 21, Walt Whitman fled his father's dark shadow and set his own course in the world.

“最糟糕的情况还没有到来。” 21 岁时，沃尔特·惠特曼摆脱了父亲的阴影，在世界上开辟了自己的道路。

"I stand for the sunny point of view," he would claim, "the joyful conclusion."

“我主张乐观的观点，”他声称，“令人高兴的结论。”

Edwin G.

埃德温·G.

Burrows, historian: If you're young and ambitious and talented and artistic and you want to make your mark in the world New York was the only place to go in the United States.

巴罗斯，历史学家：如果你年轻、雄心勃勃、才华横溢、有艺术天赋，并且想在世界上留下自己的印记，那么纽约是美国唯一的去处。

It was already the center of everything that was interesting.

它已经成为一切有趣事物的中心。

Edwin G.

埃德温·G.

Burrows: There are ships crowding the waterfront from all over the world; swarms of sailors speaking all kinds of different languages; young men rushing back and forth; clerks, counting houses, cartmen dragging loads of things.

巴罗斯：码头上挤满了来自世界各地的船只；成群结队的水手讲着各种不同的语言；年轻人来回奔波；职员、会计室、拖着一大堆东西的车夫。

Whitman could get off the ferry there on the foot of Fulton Street and feel like he had entered the world.

惠特曼可以在富尔顿街脚下渡轮，感觉自己已经进入了这个世界。

Narrator: New York was a city on the rise, and Whitman was swept along by the rush of its accelerating current.

旁白：纽约是一座正在崛起的城市，惠特曼被它加速的潮流所卷走。

He was a notable figure even in a crowd: six feet tall, with a personal presence he described as "magnetic." He was self-educated, stubbornly self-reliant, and equipped with a self-regard that bordered arrogance.

即使在人群中，他也是一个引人注目的人物：身高六英尺，他形容自己的个人形象“具有吸引力”。他自学成才，顽固地自力更生，并且具有近乎傲慢的自尊心。

He had decided, as he would later say, to "enter with the rest into the competition for the usual rewards: business, political, literary." And he set out to show the men doing the hiring on newspaper row that he could be as discriminating as they.

正如他后来所说，他决定“与其他人一起参加通常的奖励竞争：商业、政治、文学”。他开始向那些在报社招聘的人表明，他可以像他们一样具有歧视性。

Allan Gurganus: He dresses in a white collar with a vest, walking stick, a big floppy Fedora, and tries to pass for a professional man of letters.

艾伦·古尔加努斯（Allan Gurganus）：他穿着白领衣服，背心，手杖，戴着大软呢帽，试图冒充专业文人。

And he gets into doors on the basis of how he appears.

他根据他的外表进入大门。

It's not his Harvard pedigree.

这不是他的哈佛血统。

He doesn't have one.

他没有。

What he has is the force of his personality and how he appears.

他所拥有的是他的人格力量和他的外表。

Narrator: Whitman sported a fresh boutinniere in his frock coat, a gold pen, and a silver timepiece, but he could not long button up his compulsion to have his say, his way == which put him in near constant opposition to society's prevailing sentiments.

旁白：惠特曼的礼服外套上戴着新鲜的胸花、一支金笔和一块银表，但他无法长期压抑自己的言论、他的方式==的冲动，这使他几乎始终反对社会流行的情绪。

As a newspaperman, Walt staked out radical positions on labor issues, women's property rights, capital punishment and immigration == and he was pleased to pick fights with the hide-bound editors at rival newspapers.

作为一名新闻记者，沃尔特在劳工问题、妇女财产权、死刑和移民等问题上提出了激进的立场==，他很高兴与竞争对手报纸的保守编辑发生争执。

He brought a bare-knuckled, working-class élan to his new business, railing against the "old moth-eaten systems of Europe" so many of New York's upper class seemed intent on emulating.

他把一个赤裸裸的工人阶级埃兰带入了他的新事业，他对“欧洲腐烂的旧制度”进行了猛烈的抨击，以至于许多纽约上层阶级似乎都想效仿。

He called one editor "a reptile marking his path with slime wherever he goes, and breathing mildew at everything fresh and fragrant." His bosses apparently found him all but ungovernable: in just four years he apparently lost favor at the Tattler , the Daily Plebeian , the Statesman , the Mirror , the Democrat , the Sun and the Star .

他称一位编辑为“爬行动物，无论走到哪里都用粘液标记自己的道路，并在所有新鲜和芳香的东西上呼吸霉菌”。他的老板显然发现他几乎无法管教：在短短四年内，他显然失去了《闲谈者》、《平民日报》、《政治家》、《镜报》、《民主党》、《太阳报》和《星报》的青睐。

David Reynolds, biographer: He got into a little bit of trouble because of he kind of rubbed up against people sometimes in the wrong way.

传记作者大卫·雷诺兹：他遇到了一些麻烦，因为他有时会以错误的方式与人发生冲突。

And he also got increasingly into trouble because he didn't like being on a schedule.

而且他也因为不喜欢按计划行事而陷入越来越多的麻烦。

Some of his employers thought he was lazy.

他的一些雇主认为他很懒。

Karen Karbiener, scholar: He wasn't the most dedicated worker.

Karen Karbiner，学者：他不是最敬业的工作者。

And his love of the city often led him == during lunch and after lunch == even though he had duties that would oblige him to stay in printing house row and do his thing at the various papers he worked for, he wound up hopping on the omnibus or walking up to a museum or to a bar or to the Park Theater to just see and absorb New York.

他对这座城市的热爱经常导致他==在午餐期间和午餐后==尽管他的职责迫使他留在印刷厂的排里并在他工作的各种报纸上做他的事情，但他最终还是跳上公共汽车或步行到博物馆、酒吧或公园剧院，只是为了看看和吸收纽约。

Betsy Erkkila: Whitman loved the sense of ah humanity flowing and, and huge crowds of people and events going on.

Betsy Erkkila：惠特曼喜欢人性流动的感觉，以及大量的人群和事件的发生。

Narrator: Like Walt himself, New York was inventing itself every day, lurching toward a destiny it had yet to fully imagine.

旁白：就像沃尔特本人一样，纽约每天都在创造自己，摇摇欲坠地走向它尚未完全想象的命运。

The pull of the emerging city captured Whitman, and compelled him to record in his personal notebooks what he heard and saw and felt as he walked nights among the throng, under gas-lamps that made Broadway a shimmer of white light, or as he ducked into the narrow, dark streets of the notorious Five Points slum.

这座新兴城市的吸引力吸引了惠特曼，迫使他在个人笔记本中记录下他夜晚在人群中行走、在百老汇闪烁着白光的煤气灯下、或者在臭名昭著的五点贫民窟狭窄、黑暗的街道上行走时所听到的、看到的和感受到的。

He noted the museum of Egyptology and the tenement house; the waterworks and the corner saloon; the lavish opera, the rowdy Bowery theaters, and == from his seat atop the omnibus, with breeze in his face == the daily human drama of the city streets.

他注意到埃及学博物馆和公寓；自来水厂和街角沙龙；奢华的歌剧院、喧闹的鲍厄里剧院，以及 == 坐在公共汽车顶上，微风拂过他的脸 == 城市街道上的日常人间戏剧。

Karen Karbiener: He's assembling these collages of what he sees.

凯伦·卡比纳：他正在将他所看到的这些拼贴画组合起来。

And he's also obviously interested in a lot of the guys that he's checking out.

而且他显然对他正在考察的很多人也很感兴趣。

So we've got these marvelous lists of whoever was taking his fancy at the time.

所以我们列出了当时喜欢他的人的精彩名单。

Allan Gurganus: He liked cab drivers.

艾伦·古尔加努斯：他喜欢出租车司机。

He liked the guys who had been in the sun all day and had brown faces, who were powerful enough through the shoulders to reign in the horses that were required to drive one of these immense cabs down the streets of Broadway.

他喜欢那些整天在阳光下晒过、棕色脸庞的家伙，他们的肩膀有足够的力量来控制马匹，而这些马匹需要在百老汇的街道上驾驶一辆巨大的出租车。

Narrator: He made it his practice to climb into the navigator's chair on the omnibus, where he chatted up drivers like Broadway Jack, Yellow Joe, Balky Bill, Old Elephant and his brother Young Elephant, Big Frank, Patsy Dee and Tippy.

旁白：他习惯于爬上公共汽车的导航椅，在那里他与百老汇杰克、黄乔、巴尔基比尔、老大象和他的兄弟小象、大弗兰克、帕齐迪和蒂皮等司机聊天。

Walt Whitman (as portrayed by actor): They had immense qualities, largely animal == eating, drinking, women == great personal pride.

沃尔特·惠特曼（由演员饰演）：他们具有巨大的品质，主要是动物==吃、喝、女人==伟大的个人自豪感。

How many hours, forenoons and afternoons == how many exhilarating night-times I have had, riding the whole length of Broadway, listening to some yarn (and the most vivid yarns ever spun, and the rarest mimicry) == or perhaps I declaiming some stormy passage from Julius Caesar and Richard (you could roar as loudly as you chose in that heavy, dense, uninterrupted street-bass.)"

多少个小时，上午和下午==我度过了多少个令人兴奋的夜晚，骑着百老汇的整个长度，听着一些纱线（以及有史以来最生动的纱线，以及最罕见的模仿）==或者也许我朗诵着朱利叶斯·凯撒和理查德的一些暴风雨段落（你可以在沉重，密集，不间断的街头低音中大声咆哮。）”

Edwin G.

埃德温·G.

Burrows: The sound would have been amazing.

Burrows：声音会很棒。

Iron rimmed wagon wheels clanking across cobblestones.

铁边马车的车轮在鹅卵石路上叮当作响。

It was a frightful din.

一片可怕的喧闹声。

There are thousands and thousands of horses.

马匹有千千万万。

And they leave tons of manure on the street every day.

他们每天都会在街上留下大量的粪便。

Hundreds of gallons of, of horse piss every day is deposited on the street of New York.

每天都有数百加仑的马尿沉积在纽约街头。

Nobody collects that.

没有人收集那个。

There is no sanitation department in 19th century New York.

19世纪的纽约没有卫生部门。

What you have is swarms of pigs basically who roam around the streets gobbling up whatever they can find.

你所拥有的就是成群结队的猪，它们在街道上闲逛，吞噬它们能找到的任何东西。

In about July or August the smell of New York is overpowering.

大约在七月或八月，纽约的气味扑鼻而来。

Ed Folsom: The dirt, the rubbish, the filth that a growing population is producing == how to deal with this, how to get rid of it == how to begin to control everything from animals walking the street to the housing for the endless number of people entering the city and growing numbers of immigrants.

艾德·福尔瑟姆：不断增长的人口产生的污垢、垃圾、污物==如何处理这些，如何摆脱它==如何开始控制一切，从街上行走的动物到无数进入城市的人和不断增加的移民的住房。

Narrator: Walt saw the frantic and furious efforts being made to tame the frightening mass of new arrivals, to fit them up to be worthy citizens of the American republic.

旁白：沃尔特看到了人们为驯服这群令人恐惧的新来者所做的疯狂而激烈的努力，以使他们成为美利坚共和国的有价值的公民。

But with as many as two thousand foreign-born people entering New York in a single day, the job was beyond anybody's doing.

但一天之内就有多达两千名外国出生的人进入纽约，这项工作超出了任何人的能力范围。

Strong voices opined that this new wave of uneducated immigrants should simply be excluded from the body politic.

强烈的声音认为，这波新的未受过教育的移民应该被排除在政治之外。

Edwin G.

埃德温·G.

Burrows: Very often you'd find genteel writers who would write about the good old days of the city when it was small, when it was intimate, when everybody knew everybody, when everybody knew who was in charge and everybody respected everybody.

巴罗斯：你经常会发现一些文雅的作家，他们会写下这座城市过去的美好时光，当时它很小，很亲密，每个人都认识每个人，每个人都知道谁负责，每个人都尊重每个人。

Karen Karbiener: I think about Edgar Allan Poe, for instance, or, or Melville, a native New Yorker who actually really didn't like the city.

凯伦·卡比纳：例如，我想到埃德加·爱伦·坡，或者梅尔维尔，一个土生土长的纽约人，实际上他并不喜欢这座城市。

All they saw were the poor crowds of immigrants, the dirtiness, and the pigs in the streets.

他们看到的只是可怜的移民群、肮脏的环境和街上的猪。

So there are plenty of people who just see the dark side.

所以有很多人只看到阴暗面。

What I love about Whitman is that this man sees beauty in that.

我喜欢惠特曼的一点是，他看到了其中的美。

He sees the Mississippi in Broadway.

他在百老汇看到了密西西比河。

He sees identity in the city.

他在这座城市中看到了身份。

Walt Whitman (as portrayed by actor): Here are people of all classes and stages of rank — from all countries of the globe, every hue of ignorance and learning, morality and vice, wealth and want, fashion and coarseness, breeding and brutality, elevation and degradation, impudence and modesty.

沃尔特·惠特曼（演员饰演）：这里有来自世界各个国家的各个阶级和阶层的人们，他们有各种各样的无知和学识、道德和罪恶、财富和匮乏、时尚和粗俗、教养和野蛮、崇高和堕落、厚颜无耻和谦虚。

Ed Folsom: Whitman feels the power of the city of strangers.

艾德·福尔瑟姆：惠特曼感受到了陌生人之城的力量。

He's looking at a city of strangers and how something we might now call urban affection begins to develop.

他正在观察一座充满陌生人的城市，以及我们现在称之为城市情感的东西如何开始发展。

How do you come to care for people that you have never seen before and that you may never see again?

您如何开始关心那些您以前从未见过并且可能再也见不到的人？

Every day we encounter people, eyes make contact, we brush by people, physically come into contact with them, and may never see them again.

我们每天都会遇到人，目光接触，与人擦肩而过，与他们有身体接触，但可能再也见不到他们了。

But Whitman's notebooks at this time are filled with images, just jottings, of these people, what they're doing, what they look like, what their names are.

但惠特曼此时的笔记本上充满了这些人的图像，只是笔记，他们在做什么，他们长什么样，他们的名字是什么。

'What is this person doing?

‘这个人在做什么？

What's the activity that defines this person?

定义此人的活动是什么？

If I were doing that activity that person would be me.

如果我从事这项活动，那个人就是我。

If I were wandering the other way, rather than this way, that person could be me.

如果我走的是另一条路，而不是这条路，那个人可能就是我。

That could be me.

那可能是我。

That could be me.

那可能是我。

What is it that separates any of us?'

是什么将我们分开？

Narrator: By 1847, within a few years of his arrival in New York, Whitman's parents and siblings had moved into nearby Brooklyn, where they tried to cash in on the new building boom — and failed.

旁白：到了 1847 年，惠特曼抵达纽约后的几年内，他的父母和兄弟姐妹就搬到了附近的布鲁克林，他们试图从那里的新建筑热潮中获利，但失败了。

Walt was drawn back into the family home to help with the finances, and to bear the weight of his father's final slide into defeat and bitter resignation.

沃尔特被拉回到家里，以帮助处理财务问题，并承受父亲最终陷入失败和痛苦辞职的重担。

Kenneth Price, scholar: He took on a parental role in the family.

肯尼思·普莱斯，学者：他在家庭中扮演了父母的角色。

I think as early as 1847 he held the title to the family home even though his father would live until 1855.

我认为早在 1847 年，他就拥有了家族住宅的所有权，尽管他的父亲一直活到 1855 年。

He's clearly the one they all turn to as the smart one, the one with insight, the person who's emotionally stable.

显然，他们都认为他是一个聪明的人，一个有洞察力的人，一个情绪稳定的人。

Narrator: Despite their downward mobility, the Whitmans felt themselves tied to a bigger destiny.

旁白：尽管惠特曼一家的地位不断下降，但他们仍感到自己与更大的命运息息相关。

Whatever their station, New Yorkers were apt to see their city as the ornament of the nation — a nation that bestrode a continent.

无论纽约人的地位如何，他们都倾向于将自己的城市视为国家的装饰品——一个横跨整个大陆的国家。

Walt could leave his troubled home, go to the office and editorialize the glory of the U.S. victory in the Mexican War, which landed Americans half a million square miles, including California, Texas and territory enough for a slew of other states.

沃尔特可以离开他陷入困境的家，去办公室并发表社论，报道美国在墨西哥战争中取得胜利的荣耀，这场战争使美国人获得了五十万平方英里的土地，包括加利福尼亚州、德克萨斯州和足够容纳许多其他州的领土。

But the new acquisition raised again — and for good — an issue on which the nation was hopelessly split.

但新的收购再次引发了——而且是永远的——这个国家在这个问题上陷入了无可救药的分裂。

In 1848, Walt Whitman had no particular concern for the emancipation or the welfare of black slaves.

1848 年，沃尔特·惠特曼并没有特别关心黑人奴隶的解放或福利。

And he could not abide fanatical abolitionists who were willing to pull the Union apart if Southern states refused to renounce slavery.

他也无法容忍狂热的废奴主义者，如果南方各州拒绝放弃奴隶制，他们就会分裂联邦。

Whitman was chiefly worried that the white working class would have to compete with slave labor in the new western territories, as they did all over the South.

惠特曼主要担心的是，白人工人阶级将不得不在新的西部地区与奴隶劳动竞争，就像他们在南方各地所做的那样。

Walt Whitman (as portrayed by actor): In fifteen of The States three hundred and fifty thousand masters of slaves keep down the true people, the millions of white citizens: mechanics, farmers, boatmen, manufacturers, and the like.

沃尔特·惠特曼（演员饰演）：在美国的十五个州，三十五万奴隶主压制着真正的人民，即数百万白人公民：机械师、农民、船夫、制造商等。

Narrator: Whitman's fierce and full-throated cry for the working man got him fired again, but a publisher offered the editorship of a new paper: the Crescent.

旁白：惠特曼对工人的激烈而大声的呼喊让他再次被解雇，但一家出版商提供了一份新报纸《新月》的编辑职位。

There was one catch — the job was in New Orleans.

有一个问题——这份工作是在新奥尔良。

Ed Folsom: And Whitman takes him up on it.

艾德·福尔瑟姆：惠特曼接受了他的建议。

It's a chance to see the nation in a way that he has not at all.

这是一个以他从未有过的方式看待这个国家的机会。

He hasn't really been out of a very narrow confine of New York and, and Long Island.

他还没有真正走出纽约和长岛的狭隘范围。

And so this is going to be for Whitman the big trip.

所以这对惠特曼来说将是一次伟大的旅行。

This is going to be Whitman's equivalent to the trip to Europe that the children of the privilege classes took.

这将相当于惠特曼笔下的特权阶级孩子的欧洲之旅。

Narrator: Early in 1848, 28-year-old Walt Whitman and his teen-aged brother, Jeff, steamed out of a gray-wrapped New York winter and into the mellow weathers of the Deep South.

旁白：1848 年初，28 岁的沃尔特·惠特曼 (Walt Whitman) 和他十几岁的弟弟杰夫 (Jeff) 走出了纽约灰蒙蒙的冬天，来到气候温和的南方腹地。

Peach trees were already in full blossom when the brothers arrived in New Orleans.

当兄弟俩抵达新奥尔良时，桃树已经盛开了。

The scent of magnolia, myrtle, and bougainvillea perfumed the city squares.

木兰、香桃木和九重葛的香气弥漫在城市广场上。

Whitman had duties at the newspaper, but he was seduced by the sensual public life of New Orleans.

惠特曼在报社工作，但他被新奥尔良性感的公共生活所吸引。

He watched the shirtless dockworkers at the wharves and the semi-nude actors and actresses enacting scenes from the bible.

他看着码头上赤裸上身的码头工人和半裸的男女演员表演圣经中的场景。

Or sat for hours amid the soft-voiced social whirl of the open-air bars, where locals spoke a gumbo of English, French, Spanish, and Cajun.

或者在露天酒吧的轻声社交氛围中坐上几个小时，当地人讲着英语、法语、西班牙语和卡津语浓汤。

He was especially drawn to the young women selling roses and violets on the street.

他尤其被街上卖玫瑰和紫罗兰的年轻女子所吸引。

Walt Whitman (as portrayed by actor): Women with splendid bodies — no bustles, no corsets, no enormities of any sort: large, luminous eyes, faces a rich olive, fascinating, magnetic, sexual, ignorant, illiterate; always more than pretty.

沃尔特·惠特曼（演员饰演）：拥有优美体态的女性——没有喧嚣，没有紧身胸衣，没有任何形式的残暴：明亮的大眼睛，丰富的橄榄色脸庞，迷人，有魅力，性感，无知，文盲；总是比漂亮更重要。

Pretty is too weak a word to apply to them."

“漂亮”这个词太弱了，不适用于他们。”

Yusef Komunyakaa, poet: There is, you know, the myth of him actually having a relationship with a black woman or a black man.

尤瑟夫·科穆尼亚卡（Yusef Komunyakaa），诗人：你知道，有一个神话说他实际上与黑人女性或黑人男性有关系。

Ed Folsom: He sees racial mixture and cultural mixture in New Orleans on a scale that he has not encountered before and sees that it can work.

艾德·福尔瑟姆：他看到新奥尔良的种族融合和文化融合达到了他以前从未遇到过的规模，并认为这是可行的。

It can be exciting.

这可能会令人兴奋。

It can be exhilarating.

这可能会令人兴奋。

It can lead to an intense new kind of affection.

它可以带来一种强烈的新感情。

Because I think part of that urban affection in Whitman is always that, that sense of, of violation, a sense of crossing a barrier and discovering you can cross it and not be harmed by it but in fact be strengthened by it, enlarged by it.

因为我认为惠特曼的城市情​​感的一部分始终是这种感觉，一种侵犯感，一种跨越障碍的感觉，发现你可以跨越它，不会受到它的伤害，事实上，它会被它加强，被它放大。

Narrator: There was another, more difficult crossing the trip South forced on Whitman — a crossing that would haunt him for years.

旁白：惠特曼还被迫经历了另一次更困难的南渡之旅——这次穿越多年来一直困扰着他。

In New York, where slavery had long been illegal, Whitman had easily averted his gaze from the true costs of the institution.

在纽约，奴隶制长期以来一直是非法的，惠特曼很容易将目光从该制度的真正成本上转移开。

But in New Orleans, he came face to face with the stark fact of human bondage in a country founded on the idea of freedom, face to face with an entire race of people excluded by law and by force from the American story.

但在新奥尔良，他面对的是一个建立在自由理念基础上的国家中人类受奴役的严峻事实，面对的是整个种族被法律和武力排除在美国故事之外。

Ed Folsom: He sees slave auctions take place.

艾德·福尔瑟姆：他看到奴隶拍卖正在发生。

And as he sees bodies of human beings for sale he is stunned by the brutality and the sheer physical force of the experience.

当他看到人类的尸体被出售时，他对这种经历的残酷和纯粹的身体力量感到震惊。

Betsy Erkkila: He would have seen auctioneers enumerating literally body parts in selling human beings as commodities.

Betsy Erkkila：他会看到拍卖师在将人类作为商品出售时逐字逐句地列举身体部位。

And buyers would actually feel slave's bodies in trying to figure out if they were going to buy them.

买家实际上会感觉到奴隶的身体，试图弄清楚他们是否要购买它们。

Yusef Komunyakaa: For some reason I feel like he has the capacity to imagine himself on the auction block as well.

Yusef Komunyakaa：出于某种原因，我觉得他也有能力想象自己出现在拍卖场上。

Ed Folsom: That could be me.

艾德·福尔瑟姆：那可能是我。

That could be me.

那可能是我。

That person could be me.

那个人可能就是我。

Yusef Komunyakaa: It really enters his psyche.

Yusef Komunyakaa：这确实进入了他的心灵。

I think he's wrestling with himself.

我认为他正在与自己较量。

Narrator: When Walt returned to his parents' home in Brooklyn after just three months in New Orleans, he carried with him a poster advertising a slave auction, and vague premonitions that the contradictions in American democracy would prove fatal.

旁白：当沃尔特在新奥尔良呆了三个月后回到布鲁克林的父母家时，他带着一张奴隶拍卖的海报，并隐约预感到美国民主中的矛盾将是致命的。

Over the next eight years, the issue of slavery festered: by 1855, an armed battle had already commenced on the Kansas-Missouri border.

在接下来的八年里，奴隶制问题愈演愈烈：到 1855 年，堪萨斯州和密苏里州边境已经爆发了一场武装战斗。

Rickety compromise legislation in Washington crumbled.

华盛顿摇摇欲坠的妥协立法崩溃了。

The bonds of national affection were being eaten away.

民族感情的纽带正在被蚕食。

And Whitman could see that the nation's political leaders were too timid or too self-interested to minister to the sickness before it rotted America to the bone.

惠特曼可以看到，国家的政治领导人太胆怯或太自私，无法在疾病将美国彻底腐烂之前对其进行治理。

What the nation needed, Whitman was convinced, was a call to healing from a voice that was of, by, and for the common people.

惠特曼坚信，国家所需要的是来自普通民众、普通民众的声音以及为普通民众服务的呼吁。

"The poet is representative," America's literary eminence, Ralph Waldo Emerson, had essayed ten years earlier.

“诗人具有代表性，”美国文学巨匠拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生十年前曾这样写道。

"He stands among partial men for the complete man.

“他站在部分人之中，代表着完整的人。

The poet is the man without impediment, who sees and handles that which others dream of, traverses the whole scale of experience.

诗人是一个没有障碍的人，他看到并处理别人梦想的东西，穿越整个经验的尺度。

I look in vain for the poet I describe."

我徒劳地寻找我所描述的诗人。”

Allan Gurganus: I think Walt Whitman went to the help wanted section and found a squib that said "Wanted: National Poet." And he was innocent enough to believe there really was such a job.

艾伦·古尔加努斯：我认为沃尔特·惠特曼去了寻求帮助的部分，发现了一个写着“寻求：国家诗人”的哑炮。而且他天真地相信真的有这样一份工作。

And if he could just write a poem that incorporated everything he felt and suspected and hoped for from America that he would have the position.

如果他能写一首诗，融入他对美国的所有感受、怀疑和希望，他就能获得这个职位。

Narrator: Alone in the garret of a working class house in Brooklyn, New York == jotting in a three-and-a-half by five-and-a-half inch notebook == Walt Whitman searched for a poetic voice that could gather up and bind all the disparate places and people of America, a voice that would rise above despair and cynicism and intolerance to sing the vast promise of the country.

旁白：独自一人在纽约布鲁克林一栋工人阶级住宅的阁楼里==在一本三寸半乘五寸半的笔记本上记笔记==沃尔特·惠特曼寻找一种诗意的声音，能够聚集并团结美国所有不同的地方和人民，一种能够超越绝望、愤世嫉俗和不宽容的声音，歌颂这个国家的巨大希望。

Ed Folsom: As you read through his little notebook you can see the moment where Leaves of Grass begins to emerge.

艾德·福尔瑟姆：当你阅读他的小笔记本时，你可以看到《草叶集》开始出现的那一刻。

In typical Whitman fashion there all kinds of things in this notebook: little notations of what he owes people and he's got addresses and names of people and places that he has to go.

在典型的惠特曼风格中，这本笔记本里有各种各样的东西：他欠人们的东西的小记号，他有地址和人名以及他必须去的地方。

And then he begins writing in prose.

然后他开始写散文。

And what he's writing are ideas.

他写的都是想法。

He starts out saying, 'be simple and clear, be not occult.' He's looking for his voice.

他一开始就说，“要简单明了，不要神秘。”他在寻找他的声音。

And at one point he says 'every soul has its own individual voice.' And then he has a line that I've always been fascinated with, it says, 'do not descend among professors and capitalists.' And he stops at that point and there a couple of blank pages.

有一次他说“每个灵魂都有自己独特的声音”。然后他有一句话让我一直很着迷，它说：“不要降到教授和资本家之间。”他在那儿停了下来，有几页空白。

And then when you turn the page suddenly there it is.

然后当你突然翻过这一页时，它就在那里。

And it starts, 'I am the poet of slaves and of the masters of slaves.

它的开头是：“我是奴隶的诗人，也是奴隶的主人的诗人。”

I am the poet of the body and I am ...

我是身体的诗人，我是......

' and then he stops.

’然后他停了下来。

And in that moment where he writes 'and I am' I can feel the moment where Whitman senses that "I" that is going to become his main character in all of his poems.

在他写下“我是”的那一刻，我能感觉到惠特曼意识到“我”将成为他所有诗歌中的主角。

That "I" has come into existence.

那个“我”已经存在了。

'And I am.' And then he crosses those little lines out.

“我也是。”然后他划掉那些小线。

And there's a little space.

而且还有一点空间。

And then he writes the first lines that are going to get into Leaves of Grass .

然后他写下了《草叶集》的第一行诗。

'I am the poet of the body and I am the poet of the soul.

“我是身体的诗人，也是灵魂的诗人。

I go with the slaves of the earth equally with the masters.

我与地球上的奴隶一样，与主人同在。

And I will stand between the master and the slaves, entering into both so that both will understand me alike.' And there it is.

我将站在主人和奴隶之间，进入两者之中，以便双方都能同样理解我。就是这样。

Everything that's going to be great in Whitman is in those lines.

惠特曼的一切伟大之处都在这些方面。

Narrator: Out of that small notebook grew a thin volume with twelve untitled poems, type-set by the hand of the poet himself.

旁白：那本小笔记本里有一本薄薄的卷子，里面有十二首无题诗，是诗人亲手排版的。

Martin Espada, poet: I celebrate myself, And what I assume, you shall assume

诗人马丁·埃斯帕达 (Martin Espada)：我庆祝自己，我所假设的，你也应该假设

Yusef Komunyakaa: For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

Yusef Komunyakaa：因为每一个属于我的原子都属于你。

I loafe and invite my soul,

我闲逛并邀请我的灵魂，

Allan Gurganus: I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass.

艾伦·古尔加努斯（Allan Gurganus）：我闲逛并邀请我的灵魂，我轻松地倾斜并闲逛，观察夏季草丛。

Walt Whitman (as portrayed by actor): The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me.

沃尔特·惠特曼（演员饰演）：斑鹰飞过并指责我。

He complains of my gab and my loitering.

他抱怨我的废话和闲逛。

I too am not a bit tamed.

我也没有一点驯服。

I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

我也是无法翻译的，我在世界屋脊上发出野蛮的咆哮。

Martin Espada: I speak the password primeval.

Martin Espada：我说的是原始密码。

I give the sign of democracy; By God!

我发出民主的信号；天啊！

I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms.

我不会接受任何不能以同样条件得到其对应物的东西。

Through me forbidden voices, Voices of sexes and lusts.

通过我禁止的声音，性别和欲望的声音。

Voices veiled, and I remove the veil, Voices indecent by me clarified And transfigured.

声音被遮盖，我揭开面纱， 不雅的声音被我澄清并变形。

Billy Collins, poet: Here was the first truly American poet who broke out of the form of formal poetry.

比利·柯林斯，诗人：这是第一位真正突破正式诗歌形式的美国诗人。

You know how in a sonnet you have these boundaries.

你知道在十四行诗中如何有这些界限。

Leaves of Grass is a poem without boundaries and so that everything can flood into it: People, professions, landscape, memories, engineering, water, children, Native Americans.

《草叶集》是一首没有界限的诗，所以一切都可以涌入其中：人、职业、风景、记忆、工程、水、孩子、美洲原住民。

There's no boundaries keeping anything out.

没有任何界限可以阻止任何事物。

Narrator: Leaves of Grass contained astronomy, mythology, Egyptology, religions of the East and West, and the latest science.

旁白：《草叶集》包含了天文学、神话、埃及学、东西方宗教以及最新科学。

The sublime operatic line and the blunt, coarse talk of the Five Points were in Leaves .

优美的歌剧台词和直率、粗俗的五点谈话都在《叶子》中。

The carpenter, the printer, the half-breed, patriarchs, prostitutes, opium eaters, and the President himself peopled the poems; the squaw in her yellow-hemmed cloth was there on the page, the bride in her white dress, Kentuckian, Georgian and Californian.

木匠、印刷工、混血儿、族长、妓女、鸦片吸食者和总统本人都出现在诗中；页面上有穿着黄边布的女人，穿着白色礼服的新娘，肯塔基州、乔治亚州和加利福尼亚州的风格。

What joined them to one another was the firm embrace of Poet himself — who was, after all, just one of the crowd.

将他们联系在一起的是诗人本人的坚定拥抱——毕竟，他只是人群中的一员。

Ed Folsom: Whitman portrays himself on the title page in the frontispiece without his name, but with an image of himself unlike any image of a poet before.

艾德·福尔瑟姆：惠特曼在卷首插画的扉页上描绘了自己，没有写自己的名字，但他自己的形象不同于以前的任何诗人形象。

It's not the poet from the shoulders up dressed in formal dress which emphasizes the poetry that comes from the intellect, the poetry that comes from a life of privilege and education.

强调来自智力、来自特权和教育生活的诗歌的不是穿着正装的诗人。

Instead, this is poetry that comes from a life of walking in the streets.

相反，这是来自街头行走生活的诗。

It's the poetry that emerges through the hands and arms and through the heart pumping blood to all parts of the body.

这是通过双手和手臂以及将血液泵送到身体各个部位的心脏而出现的诗歌。

The perspiration, the aroma of these arm pits Whitman talks about — aroma finer than prayer.

惠特曼谈到汗水和腋窝的香气——比祈祷更美妙的香气。

Kenneth Price: This was everything about sinews.

肯尼斯·普莱斯：这就是关于筋的一切。

This was everything about crotch.

这就是关于胯部的一切。

This was everything about armpits.

这就是关于腋窝的一切。

For him you couldn't have an honest poetry that wasn't including the whole person.

对他来说，你不可能有一首不包含整个人的诚实的诗。

Karen Karbiener: Nakedness from the first page is celebrated.

凯伦·卡比纳（Karen Karbiener）：从第一页开始的裸体就受到了庆祝。

Whitman's openness and celebration of sexuality and not just heterosexual sex but sex on the edges, masturbation, voyeurism, oral sex, it's in there.

惠特曼对性的开放和庆祝，不仅是异性性行为，还有边缘性行为、手淫、偷窥、口交，都在其中。

Allan Gurganus: I grew up in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.

艾伦·古尔加努斯：我在北卡罗来纳州落基山长大。

There was not a working bookshop but there was a stationery department in the corner of the best department store.

没有一家正在营业的书店，但在最好的百货公司的角落里有一个文具部。

And there among the greeting cards were a few books including Leaves of Grass .

贺卡里有几本书，包括《草叶集》。

I had somehow heard through the ten-year-old grapevine that it had some hot stuff in it.

我不知何故从那棵已有十年历史的小道消息中听说，里面有一些热的东西。

I bought it assuming that the clerk would believe that it was for inspirational purposes and pedaled to the nearest woods.

我买了它，假设店员会相信它是为了鼓舞人心的目的，然后骑到最近的树林。

And I opened and began looking for the good parts and discovered that in a strange way it's all good parts in Whitman; that you're never more than four lines from an erotic jot.

我打开并开始寻找好的部分，并以一种奇怪的方式发现惠特曼的所有好的部分；你的情色笔记永远不会超过四行。

There, you're never very far away from the body.

在那里，你永远不会远离身体。

Walt Whitman (as portrayed by actor): I mind how we lay in June, such a transparent summer morning; You settled your head athwart my hips and gently turned over upon me, And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my barestript heart, And reached till you felt my beard, and reached till you held my feet.

沃尔特·惠特曼（演员饰演）：我在意我们在六月里的样子，一个透明的夏日早晨；你把头横过我的臀部，轻轻地翻过身来，把衬衫从我的胸骨上分开，把你的舌头伸进我赤裸的心，伸手直到你摸到我的胡须，伸手直到你握住我的脚。

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and joy and knowledge that pass all the art and argument of the earth; And I know that the hand of God is the elderhand of my own.

和平、欢乐和知识迅速出现并在我周围传播，超越了地球上所有的艺术和争论；我知道上帝的手就是我自己的长手。

Yusef Komunyakaa: There's a whole thing about the sexuality and all.

Yusef Komunyakaa：关于性和所有一切，都有一整套事情。

But I think maybe there is a kind of deeper more serious taboo.

但我想也许还有一种更深层次更严重的禁忌。

Ed Folsom: Whitman equates the human body and democracy in some radical and essential way: that the human body is what we all share.

艾德·福尔瑟姆：惠特曼以某种激进而本质的方式将人体与民主等同起来：人体是我们所有人共有的。

We all experience this world through the body.

我们都通过身体体验这个世界。

And if we can all begin to agree that the body itself is a sacred thing then we have the beginnings of democracy.

如果我们都能开始同意身体本身是神圣的东西，那么我们就有了民主的开始。

Yusef Komunyakaa: A slave at auction!

Yusef Komunyakaa：拍卖中的奴隶！

I help the auctioneer.

我帮助拍卖师。

The sloven does not half know his business.

不修边幅的人对自己的事一无所知。

Gentlemen look on this curious creature, Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for him, For him the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant, For him the revolving cycles truly and steadily rolled.

先生们看着这个好奇的生物，无论竞标者的出价如何，他们对他来说都不够高，对他来说，地球准备了亿万年没有一种动物或植物，对他来说，旋转周期真正而稳定地滚动。

In that head the all baffling brain, In it and below it the makings of attributes of heroes.

在那颗脑袋里，有一个令人费解的大脑， 在它里面及其下面，蕴藏着英雄的特质。

Examine these limbs, red, black or white.

检查这些肢体，红色、黑色或白色。

They are very cunning in tendon and nerve.

他们的肌腱和神经非常狡猾。

They shall be stripped that you may see them.

他们将被脱光，以便你可以看到他们。

Exquisite senses, life lit eyes pluck volition and wonders within there yet.

精致的感官、生命之光的眼睛激发着内心的意志和奇迹。

Within there runs his blood.

里面流淌着他的血液。

The same old blood.

同样的古老血液。

The same red running blood.

同样的红色流血。

Narrator: Walt could afford to print only 795 copies of his ungainly, oversized first edition.

旁白：沃尔特只能印刷 795 份他那笨拙、超大的第一版。

A few hundred he bound in dark green cloth, the rest in paper.

他用深绿色的布装订了几百本，其余的用纸装订。

He found a few stores willing to stock the book, set a price, and loosed it on the world.

他找到了几家愿意进货这本书的商店，定价后向全世界发行。

Karen Karbiener: There were some writers that really supported that vision.

凯伦·卡比纳：有一些作家真正支持这一愿景。

But there were so many bad reviews.

但也有很多不好的评论。

And many of them came from prestigious voices of the day.

其中许多来自当时有声望的声音。

Kenneth Price: One or more reviewer will suggest that he be whipped in the streets.

肯尼斯·普莱斯：一位或多位评论家会建议他在街上受到鞭打。

And that one suggests that he should commit suicide.

那个人建议他应该自杀。

David Reynolds: Another reviewer said that this author must be like a lunatic, an escaped lunatic, raving in pitiable delirium.

大卫·雷诺兹：另一位评论家说，这个作者一定像个疯子，一个逃亡的疯子，在可怜的谵妄中胡言乱语。

Kenneth Price: Other people describe Leaves of Grass as being like an explosion in a sewer.

肯尼斯·普莱斯：其他人将《草叶集》描述为就像下水道中的爆炸。

And so, so people go to great lengths to really say some brutal things about his book.

因此，人们不遗余力地对他的书说了一些残酷的话。

Narrator: Whitman was oddly cheered by the reaction of the literary elite.

旁白：惠特曼对文学精英的反应感到奇怪的欢呼。

He liked that they seemed so obviously threatened by his homemade book.

他喜欢他们看起来明显受到他自制的书的威胁。

In fact, the force and volume of the denunciation of Leaves of Grass only increased Whitman's already high hopes.

事实上，对《草叶集》的谴责力度和力度，只会让惠特曼本已寄予厚望的愿望更加强烈。

Kenneth Price: Whitman had a remarkable faith in ordinary people to understand his book.

肯尼思·普莱斯：惠特曼对普通人能够理解他的书抱有极大的信心。

It's celebrating American democracy.

这是庆祝美国民主。

It's talking the language of the people.

这是人们谈论的语言。

It's attacking aristocratic influences in American life.

它正在攻击美国生活中的贵族影响。

Why wouldn't this be very, very popular with the people?

为什么这不会非常非常受人们欢迎呢？

He expected stage drivers to stop between runs and pull out a copy of Leaves of Grass .

他希望舞台司机在运行之间停下来，拿出一本《草叶集》。

People going out to plow the fields have a copy of Leaves of Grass in their very large back pocket to accommodate that, that huge book.

出去犁田的人在他们的大后袋里会放一本《草叶集》，以容纳那本大书。

David Reynolds: In the preface to this book he had written, 'this is what you shall do.

大卫·雷诺兹：他在这本书的序言中写道，“这就是你应该做的”。

You shall take my volume every month out in nature and you'll read it under the sky.' And he expected people to be healed.

你每个月都应该把我的书带到大自然中去，然后你就会在天空下阅读它。他希望人们得到治愈。

And he expected America to kind of come together in this vision, this poetic vision.

他希望美国能够在这个愿景、这个诗意的愿景中团结起来。

Narrator: Walt's poetic vision did not exactly sweep the nation.

旁白：沃尔特的诗意愿景并没有完全席卷全国。

A dozen people bought the book, maybe two-dozen.

有十几个人买了这本书，也许有两打。

Whitman gave away more than he sold.

惠特曼捐赠的东西比他出售的东西还要多。

His own family showed little interest.

他自己的家人对此兴趣不大。

"I saw the book," said Walt's brother George.

“我看到了这本书，”沃尔特的弟弟乔治说。

"Didn't read it at all == didn't think it worth reading." The one glimmer of hope came from the high arbiter of literary America == Ralph Waldo Emerson, to whom Whitman had sent one of the first copies of Leaves of Grass.

“根本没读过==觉得不值得读。”一线希望来自美国文学的最高仲裁者拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生，惠特曼向他寄去了第一本《草叶集》。

Emerson's actual response was markedly ambivalent.

艾默生的实际反应显然是矛盾的。

He wrote to friends that Leaves was "a nondescript monster," with "terrible eyes and buffalo strength, American to the bone." He wasn't convinced the book could properly be called poetry but Emerson also recognized that Leaves of Grass could not be ignored, that its author merited encouragement.

他在给朋友的信中说，利维斯是“一个不起眼的怪物”，“有着可怕的眼睛和水牛般的力量，是彻头彻尾的美国人”。他不相信这本书可以被恰当地称为诗歌，但爱默生也认识到《草叶集》不能被忽视，它的作者值得鼓励。

Betsy Erkkila: And Emerson, who was the God in some ways of American letters, took the time out to write Whitman an extraordinary letter in which he basically says that he rubbed his eyes a little bit to see if this was no dream.

贝齐·埃基拉：爱默生在美国文学的某些方面堪称上帝，他抽出时间给惠特曼写了一封非同寻常的信，他在信中基本上说他揉了揉眼睛，看看这是否不是一个梦。

Narrator: "I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed," Emerson wrote.

旁白：“我发现这是美国迄今为止贡献的最非凡的机智和智慧，”爱默生写道。

"I give you joy of your free and brave thought.

“我给你自由和勇敢的思想带来的快乐。

I have great joy in it.

我对此感到非常高兴。

I find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they must be.

我发现无与伦比的事情说得无比好，因为它们一定是这样。

I greet you at the beginning of a great career."

我在伟大职业生涯的开始向您致意。”

Allan Gurganus: There are very few people in our culture who would be a concomitant figure to Emerson then.

艾伦·古尔加努斯：在我们的文化中，很少有人能与艾默生相提并论。

It's a combination of Billy Graham and Oprah Winfrey.

它是比利·格雷厄姆和奥普拉·温弗瑞的结合体。

It's so powerful to imagine that Whitman told nobody he had received this letter.

想象一下惠特曼没有告诉任何人他收到了这封信，真是太震撼了。

He walked around with it in his breast pocket probably walking out into fields and meadows which were still then available in Brooklyn reading and reading and rereading it.

他把这本书放在胸前的口袋里走来走去，可能会走到布鲁克林的田野和草地上，读啊读啊重读。

Narrator: Whitman understood the letter was meant for his eyes only.

旁白：惠特曼明白这封信仅供他阅读。

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a jealous guardian of his own standing, careful about whom he anointed in public.

拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生（Ralph Waldo Emerson）是一个嫉妒的捍卫者，他维护自己的地位，对他在公共场合指定的人很谨慎。

But Whitman's grand project was hanging by a thread.

但惠特曼的宏伟计划却岌岌可危。

Leaves of Grass was too dear to Walt == and too important to the nation he loved == to adhere to the niceties of social intercourse.

《草叶集》对沃尔特来说太珍贵了==，对他所爱的国家来说也太重要了==，以至于无法遵守社交交往的礼仪。

David Reynolds: He actually had the letter printed in the New York Tribune which a little, little suspect there.

大卫·雷诺兹：他实际上在《纽约论坛报》上刊登了这封信，这让人有点怀疑。

And without Emerson's permission.

并且未经艾默生许可。

Narrator: Whitman didn't stop there.

旁白：惠特曼并没有就此止步。

With sales sill lagging, he wrote at least three anonymous and bombastic reviews of Leaves of Grass .

由于销量停滞不前，他为《草叶集》写了至少三篇匿名且夸大其词的评论。

"He is to prove either the most lamentable of failures or the most glorious of triumphs in the known history of literature," Whitman wrote of himself.

“他要么证明了已知文学史上最可悲的失败，要么证明了最光荣的胜利，”惠特曼这样评价自己。

"Here we have a book which fairly staggers us .

“这里有一本让我们相当震惊的书。

.

。

.

。

An American bard at last!" For all his manic effort, sales of Leaves did not improve.

终于成为美国吟游诗人了！”尽管他疯狂地努力，《Leaves》的销量并没有改善。

So Whitman simply bent to work on his next hope == a second edition == preparing twenty new poems and revising the original twelve.

因此惠特曼一心致力于他的下一个希望==第二版==准备二十首新诗并修改原来的十二首。

He was desperate to connect.

他迫切地想要联系。

Ed Folsom: Whitman publishes a new poem called Sun-down Poem in this edition eventually called Crossing Brooklyn Ferry .

艾德·福尔瑟姆：惠特曼在这个版本中发表了一首名为《日落诗》的新诗，最终命名为《穿越布鲁克林渡轮》。

He writes: "It avails not neither time or place.

他写道：“这对时间和地点都没有帮助。

Distance avails not.

距离没有用。

I am with you, you men and women of a generation or ever so many generations hence.

我与你们同在，你们这一代人或几代人的男男女女。

I project myself.

我投射自己。

Also I return.

我也回来了。

I am with you and know how it is." Whitman places his "I," the "I" that's been speaking in the present tense, puts it into the past.

我和你在一起，我知道事情是怎样的。”惠特曼将他的“我”，即以现在时态说话的“我”，置于过去。

And he puts himself in a past now that's so far past that he's not alive anymore.

他把自己置身于过去，那已经是遥远的过去了，他已经不再活着了。

And gives over the present tense of the poem to you and me, to us, the readers.

并将这首诗的现在时态交给你和我，交给我们读者。

Whitman in 1856 was not only imagining us in 2008 reading this poem, but projecting us into 2008 to read this poem.

1856 年的惠特曼不仅想象我们在 2008 年阅读这首诗，而且将我们投射到 2008 年阅读这首诗。

It's as if he is creating us as a character in the poem.

就好像他正在把我们塑造成诗中的一个角色。

Ed Folsom: Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky so I felt.

艾德·福尔瑟姆：就像你看着河流和天空时的感觉一样，我也有同样的感觉。

Just as any of you is one of a living crowd I was one of a crowd.

正如你们中的任何一个人都是活着的人群中的一员一样，我也是人群中的一员。

Walt Whitman (as portrayed by actor): Just as you are refreshed by the gladness of the river, and the bright flow, I was refreshed.

沃尔特·惠特曼（演员饰演）：正如你因河流的欢乐和明亮的水流而感到精神焕发一样，我也感到精神焕发。

Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood, yet was hurried.

正如你站着，靠在栏杆上，却随着湍急的水流而匆忙，我站着，却又匆匆忙忙。

Martin Espada: My Brooklyn wasn't quite the Brooklyn of Walt Whitman.

马丁·埃斯帕达：我的布鲁克林并不完全是沃尔特·惠特曼的布鲁克林。

At the same time, there's so much I recognize in this.

同时，这里面有很多我认识的地方。

I certainly recognize in Whitman's deep appreciation for the fact that being alive my own appreciation for the fact of being alive.

我当然从惠特曼对活着这一事实的深深欣赏中认识到我自己对活着这一事实的欣赏。

And he's absolutely right.

他是完全正确的。

I see his Brooklyn.

我看到了他的布鲁克林。

And strangely enough, I think he saw my Brooklyn.

奇怪的是，我认为他看到了我的布鲁克林。

As different as it was there were certainly things in common.

尽管有所不同，但肯定有一些共同点。

I think about those seagulls.

我想起那些海鸥。

I saw those seagulls too.

我也看到了那些海鸥。

And damn, I think they're the same seagulls.

该死的，我认为它们是同一只海鸥。

Walt Whitman (as portrayed by actor): Closer yet I approach you, What thought you have of me, I had as much of you — I laid in my stores in advance, I considered long and seriously of you before you were born.

沃尔特·惠特曼（演员饰演）：我离你更近了，你对我的看法，我对你的看法也一样——我提前埋下了我的储备，在你出生之前，我就对你进行了长期而认真的考虑。

Who was to know what should come home to me?

谁知道我应该回家什么？

Who knows but I am enjoying this?

谁知道我很享受这个呢？

Who knows but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me?

谁知道呢，我现在就像在看着你一样，尽管你看不到我？

Ed Folsom: What all the preaching in the world, what all the religions in the world have been telling you to have faith about: that there is some sort of life after death, that it's possible to communicate across time and across space.

艾德·福尔瑟姆：世界上所有的布道，世界上所有的宗教都在告诉你要相信：死后有某种生命，跨越时间和空间的交流是可能的。

We've just proved it, haven't we?

我们刚刚证明了这一点，不是吗？

That we can talk beyond death.

我们可以超越死亡进行交谈。

That we can have affection for one another beyond death.

愿我们能够在死亡之后彼此相爱。

Walt Whitman (as portrayed by actor): We understand, then, do we not?

沃尔特·惠特曼（演员饰演）：那么我们理解，不是吗？

What I promised without mentioning it, have you not accepted?

我不言而喻的承诺，你还不接受吗？

What the study could not teach—what the preaching could not accomplish is accomplished, is it not?

学习所不能教导的——讲道所不能完成的事情已经完成了，不是吗？

Narrator: Within weeks of the publication of the second edition of Leaves of Grass , two envoys from Emerson's world — writers Henry David Thoreau and Bronson Alcott — made pilgrimage to Brooklyn to have a look at this Walt Whitman.

旁白：《草叶集》第二版出版几周后，两位来自爱默生世界的使者——作家亨利·大卫·梭罗和布朗森·奥尔科特——来到布鲁克林朝圣，一睹这位沃尔特·惠特曼的风采。

And Whitman put on a show.

惠特曼上演了一场表演。

He invited the men up to his unkempt attic room where he made what he called his "pomes" at a rude wooden table.

他邀请这些人到他凌乱的阁楼房间，在那里他在一张简陋的木桌上制作了他所谓的“pomes”。

Thoreau, the man who had lived for seasons in Walden Woods, was taken aback by Whitman's unmade bed — a slop jar visible underneath.

梭罗曾在瓦尔登森林住过好几个季节，他对惠特曼凌乱的床感到惊讶——床底下有一个污水罐。

Alcott noted with a start the prints of Hercules, Bacchus and a satyr tacked to the attic wall, while Whitman bragged about bathing naked in Coney Island's winter surf.

奥尔科特惊讶地注意到阁楼墙上钉着赫拉克勒斯、酒神巴克斯和色狼的脚印，而惠特曼则吹嘘自己在科尼岛的冬季冲浪中赤身裸体沐浴。

Walt Whitman was "broad-shouldered, rouge-fleshed, Bacchus-browed, bearded like a satyr, and rank." wrote Alcott.

沃尔特·惠特曼“肩膀宽阔，皮肤红润，眉毛像酒神，胡子像色狼，而且地位很高”。奥尔科特写道。

"Eyes gray, unimaginative, cautious yet sagacious; his voice deep, sharp, tender sometimes and almost melting.

“灰色的眼睛，缺乏想象力，谨慎而又睿智；他的声音低沉、尖锐，有时温柔，几乎融化了。

When talking he will recline upon the couch at length, pillowing his head upon his bended arm, and informing you naively how lazy he is, and slow." Whitman's strange pose — as always — was meant to deflect.

说话时，他会慢慢地靠在沙发上，把头枕在弯曲的手臂上，天真地告诉你他是多么懒惰和缓慢。”惠特曼的奇怪姿势——一如既往——是为了转移视线。

He was the poet of health and glad tidings and he didn't care to let anybody see beyond that.

他是健康和喜讯的诗人，他不想让任何人看到更多的东西。

In fact, Whitman himself was a master at denying the uglier facts at hand.

事实上，惠特曼本人就是否认眼前更丑陋事实的大师。

Allan Gurganus: He's loaded into a house with many, many siblings many of whom have pathologies which would fill the hour.

艾伦·古尔加努斯（Allan Gurganus）：他和很多很多兄弟姐妹住进了一所房子，其中许多人都患有疾病，这足以占据一小时。

He shared the bed with his profoundly retarded brother who over ate until he passed out from ingesting food.

他与患有严重智障的弟弟同睡一张床，后者吃得过多，直到因摄入食物而昏倒。

David Reynolds: His brother Andrew became an alcoholic and was married to a woman who became a streetwalker.

大卫·雷诺兹：他的兄弟安德鲁成为一名酒鬼，并与一名成为街头妓女的女人结婚。

His sister Hannah was probably psychotic.

他的妹妹汉娜可能患有精神病。

She was very mentally unstable.

她的精神状态非常不稳定。

His older brother, Jesse, Walt eventually had to commit him to the Kings County Lunatic Asylum.

他的哥哥杰西·沃尔特最终不得不把他送进国王县疯人院。

Allan Gurganus: The more you read about Whitman's family life, the more you understand why he would prefer to be riding to and fro on horse drawn buses to and fro up and down Broadway again and again.

艾伦·古尔加努斯：你对惠特曼的家庭生活了解得越多，你就越能理解为什么他更喜欢乘坐马车来回百老汇。

He had to stay away from home as much as possible.

他必须尽可能远离家乡。

Narrator: In the late 1850s Walt liked to jump off the omnibus at Broadway and Bleecker, where he could descend among the revelers at an underground saloon called Pfaff's.

旁白：在 1850 年代末，沃尔特喜欢从百老汇和布利克的公共汽车上跳下来，然后在一家名为 Pfaff's 的地下酒吧里与狂欢者一起下车。

Allan Gurganus: Pfaff's was the Andy Warhol factory, the Studio 54, the Algonquin Round Table all rolled into one.

Allan Gurganus：Pfaff 工厂是 Andy Warhol 工厂、Studio 54 和 Algonquin 圆桌的集合体。

Karen Karbiener: It's a place where a lot of the theatrical set winds up.

凯伦·卡比纳（Karen Karbiener）：这里是很多戏剧场景的取景地。

He's meeting cross dressers and all sorts of other edgy types.

他遇到了变装者和各种其他前卫类型的人。

It's Bohemia for Whitman.

这是惠特曼的波西米亚。

And he realizes he kind of fits in there.

他意识到自己很适合那里。

He starts wearing these pants called "bloomers," which were the first pants that women actually wore.

他开始穿这种被称为“灯笼裤”的裤子，这是女性真正穿的第一条裤子。

And they were kind of like pantaloons, very fluffy.

它们有点像马裤，非常蓬松。

But Whitman kind of wore them flamboyantly and tucked them in his boots and, you know, basically wore women's pants.

但惠特曼有点华丽地穿着它们，并将它们塞进靴子里，你知道，基本上穿着女式裤子。

Allan Gurganus: Additionally, Pfaff's was a place to pick up beautiful young men.

Allan Gurganus：此外，Pfaff's 也是一个邂逅年轻美男子的地方。

And it's very funny in reading some of the earlier history of Pfaff's the heterosexual white guys who are writing seemed always to wonder why would he go to Pfaff's so often?

在阅读普法夫餐厅的一些早期历史时，非常有趣的是，正在写作的异性恋白人似乎总是想知道为什么他会如此频繁地去普法夫餐厅？

Duh, I can tell you why.

呃，我可以告诉你原因。

It was where all the other outlaws gathered.

这是所有其他亡命之徒聚集的地方。

Walt Whitman (as portrayed by actor): One flitting glimpse, caught through an interstice, Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand.

沃尔特·惠特曼（演员饰演）：透过缝隙瞥见一个爱我、我也爱的年轻人，默默地走近并坐在附近，以便他可以握住我的手。

And long while, amid the noises of coming and going, there we two, content, happy in being together, speaking a little, perhaps not a word.

很长一段时间，在来来往往的喧闹声中，我们两个人在一起，心满意足，很高兴，聊了一会儿，也许什么也没说。

Allan Gurganus: Of all the young men he met at Pfaff's, Fred Vaughn, an Irishman, was the person that he felt closest to.

艾伦·古尔加努斯：在他在普法夫遇到的所有年轻人中，爱尔兰人弗雷德·沃恩是他觉得最亲近的人。

In the two or three years Whitman lived away from home, Fred Vaughn was his roommate, was his pal.

在惠特曼离家的两三年里，弗雷德·沃恩是他的室友，是他的朋友。

Walt Whitman (as portrayed by actor): And that night, while all was still, I heard the waters roll, slowly, continually, up the shores I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to me, whispering, to congratulate me, For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night, In the stillness, in the autumn moonbeams, his face was inclined toward me, And his arm lay lightly around my breast — and that night I was happy.

沃尔特·惠特曼（演员饰演）：那天晚上，万籁俱寂，我听到海水滚滚，缓慢地、持续地，冲上岸边，我听到液体和沙子的嘶嘶声，它们向我低声窃窃私语，祝贺我，因为我最爱的人在凉爽的夜晚，睡在我的同一个被子下，在寂静中，在秋天的月光下，他的脸向我倾斜，他的手臂轻轻地搂着我的胸口——而那晚上我很高兴。

Walt Whitman (as portrayed by actor): Take notice, land of the prairies, land of the south savannas, Ohio's land, Take notice, you Kanuck woods — and you Lake Huron — and all that with you roll toward Niagra — That you each and all find somebody else to be your singer of songs One who loves me is jealous of me, and withdraws me from all but love, With the rest I dispense — I sever from what I thought would suffice me, for it does not — I am indifferent to my own songs — I will go with him I love, It is to be enough for us that we are together — We never separate again.

沃尔特·惠特曼（演员饰演）：请注意，大草原的土地，南方稀树草原的土地，俄亥俄的土地，请注意，你们卡纳克森林——还有你们休伦湖——以及你们一起滚向尼亚加拉的一切——你们每个人都找到了另一个人来成为你们的歌手，爱我的人会嫉妒我，把我从除了爱之外的一切中撤走，剩下的我分配——我与我认为足以满足我的东西断绝关系，因为事实并非如此——我对自己的歌曲漠不关心——我会和我爱的他一起去，我们在一起就足够了——我们再也不会分开。

Allan Gurganus: Just when Whitman felt closest to him, just when Whitman was literally willing to give up his mission as the great American poet — imagine he'd already published Leaves of Grass .

艾伦·古尔加努斯：就在惠特曼感觉离他最近的时候，就在惠特曼真正愿意放弃他作为伟大的美国诗人的使命的时候——想象一下他已经出版了《草叶集》。

This kid must have had something extraordinary — Mr. Vaughn decided that he wanted a wife and kids.

这个孩子一定有一些非凡的东西——沃恩先生决定他想要一个妻子和孩子。

He wanted a regular life.

他想要有规律的生活。

He was tired of lying to his family.

他厌倦了对家人撒谎。

And he moved out.

然后他就搬出去了。

He said good-bye.

他说了再见。

Walt Whitman (as portrayed by actor): Hours continuing long sore and heavy hearted.

沃尔特·惠特曼（由演员饰演）：持续数小时的痛苦和沉重。

Hours of the dusk when I withdrew to a lonesome and unfrequented spot.

黄昏的几个小时，我撤退到一个僻静且人迹罕至的地方。

Seating myself.

我自己坐下。

Leaning my face in my hands.

把脸靠在我的手里。

Hours sleepless.

数小时不眠。

Deep in the night, when I go forth, speeding swiftly the country roads or through the city streets.

夜深人静的时候，我在乡间小路或城市街道上飞驰。

Or pacing miles and miles, stifling plaintive cries.

或者踱步数英里，强忍着哀伤的哭声。

Allan Gurganus: These are passages in Whitman's life that don't make you feel embarrassed for him.

艾伦·古尔加努斯：惠特曼一生中的这些段落不会让你为他感到尴尬。

They make you feel closer to him.

他们让你感觉和他更亲近。

Because anybody who hasn't experienced desertion and heartache is scarcely alive.

因为任何没有经历过遗弃和心痛的人都算不上活着。

And all you can say, in reading those poems, is that this was one of the great loves his life.

在阅读这些诗时，你只能说，这是他一生中最伟大的挚爱之一。

We don't have images of Fred Vaughan.

我们没有弗雷德·沃恩的照片。

We don't know much about him.

我们对他了解不多。

But the residue in the poems, the great chasm in the poems, make the poetry some of the most powerful that he ever wrote.

但诗中的残留物、诗中的巨大鸿沟，使这首诗成为他写过的最有力的诗之一。

Allan Gurganus: Sullen and suffering hours!

艾伦·古尔加努斯：阴郁而痛苦的时刻！

(I am ashamed — but it is useless — I am what I am;) Hours of my torment — I wonder if other men ever have the like, out of the like feelings?

（我感到羞耻——但这没有用——我就是我；）我受尽折磨的时间——我想知道其他男人是否也有过类似的经历，出于同样的感受？

Is there even one other like me — distracted — his friend, his lover, lost to him?

是否还有一个像我一样心烦意乱的人，他的朋友，他的爱人，失去了他？

Does he see himself reflected in me?

他在我身上看到了自己的影子吗？

In these hours, does he see the face of his hours reflected?

在这些时间里，他是否看到了自己时间的面貌？

Narrator: More than three years had passed since the publication of the second edition of Leaves , but in the aftermath of the Fred Vaughan affair, Walt had something he felt compelled to share with his countrymen — a simple new human equation for national healing.

旁白：《叶子》第二版出版已经过去了三年多，但在弗雷德·沃恩事件之后，沃尔特有一些他觉得有必要与他的同胞分享的东西——一个简单的国家治愈的新人类方程式。

"Affection," he wrote, "shall solve every one of the problems of freedom." In January of 1860 — while southern States talked of abandoning the Union — Whitman let it be known that he was in search of a publisher, and a Boston firm called Thayer & Eldridge wrote to say that they wanted to publish the third edition of Leaves of Grass .

“感情，”他写道，“将解决自由的每一个问题。” 1860 年 1 月，当南部各州谈论放弃联邦时，惠特曼宣布他正在寻找出版商，波士顿一家名为 Thayer & Eldridge 的公司写信说他们想出版《草叶集》第三版。

"We can and will sell a large number of copies, try us.

“我们可以而且将会销售大量副本，试试我们。

We can do good for you." Whitman's old swagger returned.

我们可以为你做点好事。”惠特曼旧日的傲慢又回来了。

"I feel as if things had taken a turn with me at last," Walt wrote to his brother Jeff.

“我感觉事情终于发生了转变，”沃尔特写信给他的弟弟杰夫。

In Boston, preparing the new edition and its 124 new poems, Whitman made sure to be seen.

在波士顿，惠特曼正在准备新版本及其 124 首新诗，他一定会被人看到。

"I create a sensation at Washington Street," he crowed.

“我在华盛顿街引起了轰动，”他得意洋洋地说。

"Everybody here is so like everybody else.

“这里的每个人都和其他人一样。

And I am Walt Whitman." When the great man himself, Emerson, took Walt for a walk in a Boston park and suggested he tone down the more explicit sexual references, Walt would have none of it.

我是沃尔特·惠特曼。”当伟人爱默生带沃尔特去波士顿公园散步并建议他减少更露骨的性暗示时，沃尔特根本不同意。

"The dirtiest book in all the world," he would later say, "is the expurgated book."

“世界上最肮脏的书，”他后来说，“就是被删除的书。”

Karen Karbiener: The 1860 edition has two new clusters as he called them, the Calamus cluster and the Children of Adam cluster.

Karen Karbiener：1860 年版本有两个新星团，他称之为菖蒲星团和亚当子星团。

Children of Adam, like the title says, has a lot to do with heterosexual love, procreation is really a featured element of a lot of the poems.

正如标题所说，《亚当的孩子》与异性之爱有很大关系，生育确实是很多诗​​歌的特色元素。

But the Calamus poems, man, that is where the energy is.

但是菖蒲诗，伙计，这就是能量所在。

Billy Collins: Passing stranger, you do not know how longingly I look upon you.

比利·柯林斯：路过的陌生人，你不知道我是多么渴望地看着你。

Yusef Komunyakaa: You must be he I was seeking or she I was seeking.

Yusef Komunyakaa：你一定是我正在寻找的他或我正在寻找的她。

It comes to be as of a dream.

这就像一场梦。

You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh as we pass, You take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,

当我们经过时，你给了我你的眼睛、脸、肉体的快乐，作为回报，你拿走了我的胡须、胸部、双手，

Martin Espada: I am not to speak to you.

Martin Espada：我不会和你说话。

I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night.

当我独自坐着或夜里醒来时，我都会想起你。

Alone.

独自的。

I am to wait.

我要等待。

I do not doubt I am to meet you again.

我毫不怀疑我会再次见到你。

I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

我要确保我不会失去你。

Ed Folsom: I think that Whitman believed that Leaves of Grass was going to prevent a Civil War.

艾德·福尔瑟姆：我认为惠特曼相信《草叶集》将阻止内战。

I think he had that much faith in the 1860 Leaves of Grass .

我认为他对1860年的《草叶集》有那么大的信心。

Leaves of Grass is really a book about preserving the Union.

《草叶集》确实是一本关于维护联邦的书。

It's a book about holding things together, being able to absorb contradictions and still maintain a single identity.

这是一本关于如何将事物整合在一起、能够吸收矛盾并仍然保持单一身份的书。

As the war begins, as Whitman sees it turn from what everyone thought would be a two week series of skirmishes into a brutal and long-lasting war he begins to believe that Leaves of Grass is a failure, is over.

随着战争开始，惠特曼看到它从每个人都认为会持续两周的小冲突变成了一场残酷而持久的战争，他开始相信《草叶集》是失败的，已经结束了。

Narrator: As the signal national event of his lifetime unfolded, Walt Whitman turned from it, and from poetry.

旁白：随着沃尔特·惠特曼一生中标志性的全国性事件的展开，他不再关注它，也不再关注诗歌。

For the first eighteen months of the American Civil War, he fell into a deep malaise.

在美国内战的前十八个月里，他陷入了深深的不适之中。

He busied himself with a sentimental history of old Brooklyn, and occasionally picked fights at Pfaff's.

他忙于研究老布鲁克林的感伤历史，偶尔也会在普法夫家打架。

His connection to the war was his brother George, who was fighting with the 51st New York.

他与战争的联系是他的兄弟乔治，当时他正在纽约第 51 团作战。

Walt followed the 51st in the newspapers, through its battles at Roanoke Island, Kelly's Ford, Second Bull Run, Antietam, and then at Fredericksburg, Virginia, where on December 13, 1862, the Union's commanding general had ordered fourteen futile attacks against fortified Rebel position.

沃尔特在报纸上跟踪第 51 团的情况，经历了在罗阿诺克岛、凯利福特、第二布尔朗、安蒂特姆的战斗，然后在弗吉尼亚州弗雷德里克斯堡，1862 年 12 月 13 日，联邦指挥官下令对叛军的防御阵地发动 14 次徒劳的攻击。

When George's name appeared in the casualty lists in the New York newspapers just before Christmas of 1862, Walt headed to the front to find his brother.

1862 年圣诞节前夕，当乔治的名字出现在纽约报纸的伤亡名单中时，沃尔特前往前线寻找他的兄弟。

Ed Folsom: Whitman comes to Fredericksburg not knowing what he's going to find and walks by the mansion that has been turned into the hospital.

艾德·福尔瑟姆：惠特曼来到弗雷德里克斯堡时并不知道他会发现什么，并走过已变成医院的豪宅。

And what he recalls seeing is a pile of severed limbs, amputated limbs, arms and legs of the soldiers.

他记得看到的是一堆士兵的断肢、截肢、胳膊和腿。

And this war becomes for him a war on the body as well as a war between the states.

对他来说，这场战争不仅是一场身体上的战争，也是一场国家之间的战争。

Narrator George Whitman was alive and well, but Walt remained in Fredericksburg for more than a week — drawing nearer the war each day.

叙述者乔治·惠特曼还活着，身体健康，但沃尔特在弗雷德里克斯堡呆了一个多星期——战争一天天逼近。

In his small green notebook, Whitman began recording the sights, the sounds and the smells of the camp — and the soldier language of the front.

在他的绿色小笔记本中，惠特曼开始记录营地中的景象、声音和气味，以及前线士兵的语言。

He walked the charred and denuded landscape of the now-still battlefield, watched the silent burial teams at work, pulled back the army-issue blankets to look on faces of the dead, and visited with the men who would soon enough be dead.

他在如今寂静无声的战场上走过烧焦、光秃秃的土地，看着埋葬队默默地工作，拉开军队配发的毯子看死者的脸，并拜访了那些很快就会死去的人。

Walt Whitman (as portrayed by actor): I do not see that I do much good to these wounded and dying; but I cannot leave them.

沃尔特·惠特曼（演员饰演）：我看不出我对这些伤员和垂死者做了多少好事；但我不能离开他们。

Once in a while some youngster holds on to me convulsively, and I do what I can for him; at any rate stop with him and sit near him for hours, if he wishes it.

偶尔，一些年轻人会痉挛般地抓住我，我会为他尽我所能。无论如何，如果他愿意的话，请停下来，在他身边坐上几个小时。

Narrator: Doctors in the field hospital noticed Whitman, and asked him to tend to a trainload of casualties headed north to the capitol, when a few of the wounded on that train asked the favor of his company at the hospitals in Washington, Walt could not refuse.

旁白：野战医院的医生注意到了惠特曼，请他照料一列向北开往国会大厦的伤员，当火车上的一些伤员请求他连队在华盛顿医院的帮助时，沃尔特无法拒绝。

The hospitals Whitman entered were a primitive business.

惠特曼进入的医院是一个原始行业。

Surgeons sharpened knives on their boot soles.

外科医生在靴底上磨刀。

"We knew nothing about antiseptics," wrote one doctor, "and therefore used none." Infection cut through those wards.

一位医生写道：“我们对防腐剂一无所知，因此没有使用。”感染穿过这些病房。

Gangrene cases had to watch as their tissue was eaten away.

坏疽病例必须眼睁睁地看着他们的组织被吃掉。

The smell was so bad they were often isolated and left to die alone.

气味太难闻了，他们常常被孤立，独自死去。

Walt Whitman (as portrayed by actor): You hear groans or other sounds of unendurable suffering from two or three cots, but in the main there is quiet.

沃尔特·惠特曼（演员饰演）：你会听到两三张婴儿床上传来呻吟声或其他令人难以忍受的声音，但总体来说很安静。

Most of these sick or hurt are entirely without friend or acquaintances here.

大多数病人或受伤者在这里完全没有朋友或熟人。

In one of the hospitals I find Thomas Haley, shot through the lungs — inevitably dying.

在一家医院里，我发现托马斯·哈利（Thomas Haley）肺部中弹，生命垂危。

The poor fellow is like a frightened animal.

这个可怜的家伙就像一只受惊的动物。

Narrator: "What was a man to do?" Walt would later write.

旁白：“一个人应该做什么？”沃尔特后来写道。

"There were thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands needing me."

“有成千上万、数万、数十万人需要我。”

Karen Karbiener: He gives up everything, drops it and he volunteers over the next three, four years in these horrific hospitals where amputation is considered a solution.

凯伦·卡比纳：他放弃了一切，在接下来的三、四年里，他在这些可怕的医院里做志愿者，截肢被认为是一种解决方案。

Allan Gurganus: He found a job as a copyist which essentially was like a typist of the day.

艾伦·古尔加努斯：他找到了一份复印员的工作，本质上就像当时的打字员。

He would work until noon.

他会工作到中午。

Then he would go to the wards from noon until four.

然后他会从中午到四点去病房。

At four he would go back to the O'Connor's House.

四点钟他会回到奥康纳家。

He would take a bath.

他要洗澡。

He would refresh himself, probably take a nap.

他会让自己恢复精神，可能会小睡一会儿。

Have a supper.

吃晚饭吧

And then, at six, he would return to the ward and stay from six to nine.

然后，六点钟，他会回到病房，从六点呆到九点。

If a particular soldier was particularly wounded and particularly wanted his company he would stay the night at the hospital and go directly from the ward to work the next morning.

如果某个士兵受了特别重的伤并且特别需要他的陪伴，他会在医院过夜，第二天早上直接从病房去上班。

Narrator: In the spring of 1863 Whitman made his rounds from his small apartment to his government office building to the forty hospitals in and around Washington, roaming through a nervous city.

旁白：1863 年春天，惠特曼从他的小公寓到政府办公楼，再到华盛顿及其周边地区的 40 家医院，在一座紧张的城市中漫游。

Uniformed soldiers peopled the streets, and bunked down in the Capitol, or in the park next to the Washington Monument, whose construction had stalled at a squat 152 feet.

身穿制服的士兵挤满了街道，并在国会大厦或华盛顿纪念碑旁边的公园里安营扎寨，该纪念碑的建设在 152 英尺高处陷入停滞。

Completion was no sure thing.

完成并不是确定的事情。

News of General Lee's victory over the Union forces at Chancellorsville echoed through the capital city.

李将军在切斯勒斯维尔击败联邦军的消息传遍了首都。

The Rebels were at the gates for all anyone knew.

众所周知，叛军已经到了大门口。

Walt Whitman (as portrayed by actor: The squad of the guard patrolling about examining passes, a sentry at the door, a cavalry man on horseback with naked sabre over his shoulder, like a statue at the corner.

沃尔特·惠特曼（演员饰演）：守卫小队在检查通行证上巡逻，门口有哨兵，马背上有骑兵，肩上挎着赤裸的军刀，就像街角的一尊雕像。

A great white Aladdin's palace, with an unfinished dome (reported to be cracking), the Goddess of Liberty meanwhile standing in the mud waiting.

一座巨大的白色阿拉丁宫殿，圆顶尚未完工（据说已经开裂），自由女神则站在泥里等待。

The light falls, falls, touches the cold white of the great public edifices — touches with a kind of death-glaze here and there the windows of Washington.

光线落下，落下，触及伟大公共建筑的冷白色——触及华盛顿各处的窗户，带有一种死亡的光泽。

Narration: This awful scene, Whitman had come to believe, was beyond a poet's healing — certainly beyond his healing.

旁白：惠特曼开始相信，这个可怕的场景超出了诗人的治愈能力——当然也超出了他的治愈能力。

Walt had no plans to make new editions of Leaves of Grass .

沃尔特没有计划制作新版的《草叶集》。

He had dedicated himself to his duty in the hospitals.

他在医院尽职尽责。

That was all he had to give.

这就是他所能给予的一切。

What hope he still had for the continuation of America's grand democratic experiment, he grafted onto a new savior.

他对美国伟大的民主实验的继续还有多少希望，他把希望嫁接到了一位新的救世主身上。

"I see the President almost every day," he wrote, "we have got to where we exchange bows, and very cordial ones.

“我几乎每天都会见到总统，”他写道，“我们必须互相鞠躬，而且非常亲切。

I never see the man without feeling that he is one to become personally attached to."

每次见到这个人，我都会觉得他是一个值得我私下依恋的人。”

David Reynolds: Lincoln embodied everything that the I, the first person, of Leaves of Grass was meant to embody.

大卫·雷诺兹：林肯体现了《草叶集》中第一人称“我”所要体现的一切。

He was the average, ordinary, every day American.

他是一个普通、平凡、平凡的美国人。

And yet he was gifted with such eloquence.

然而他却有着如此雄辩的天赋。

He had a kind of poetic side to him.

他有一种诗意的一面。

Karen Karbiener: Apparently he used to wait in front of the White House while he was working in D.C. just for a glimpse of his Redeemer president, as he called him.

凯伦·卡比纳：显然，当他在华盛顿工作时，他常常在白宫前等候，只是为了看一眼他的“救赎主”总统（他这样称呼他）。

He used to say things like I remember a quote that Lincoln was so ugly he was beautiful you know.

他曾经说过这样的话，比如我记得有一句话说林肯很丑，但你知道，他很漂亮。

It went back around for him.

它又回到了他身边。

There was something so appealing about this homely man.

这个相貌平平的男人有一种很吸引人的地方。

Narrator: Walt may have recognized something of himself in the stooped shoulders and sad eyes of the besieged and unpopular President.

旁白：沃尔特可能从这位被围困且不受欢迎的总统驼背的肩膀和悲伤的眼神中认出了他自己。

In 1863, Lincoln was under attack for instituting the first federal income tax and a military draft == and for signing the controversial Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves in any state in rebellion.

1863年，林肯因制定第一个联邦所得税和军事征兵==以及签署有争议的《解放奴隶宣言》，解放任何叛乱州的奴隶而受到攻击。

Whitman backed him on all of it.

惠特曼在这一切上都支持他。

Above all, Walt honored Lincoln's vow to save the Union, even as the terrible cost of the President's stubborn will grew.

最重要的是，沃尔特兑现了林肯拯救联邦的誓言，尽管总统的顽固意志付出了可怕的代价。

After every big battle near Washington, hundreds of wounded a day debarked at the foot of Sixth Street == more than a thousand some days.

华盛顿附近的每场大战结束后，每天都有数百名伤员在第六街脚下登陆，有时甚至有超过一千名伤员。

"The war," Whitman wrote, "seems to me like a great slaughter-house and the men mutually butchering each other."

惠特曼写道：“在我看来，战争就像一座大屠宰场，人们互相残杀。”

Walt Whitman (as portrayed by actor): When I am present at the most appalling scenes, deaths, operations, sickening wounds (perhaps full of maggots,) I do not give out or budge.

沃尔特·惠特曼（演员饰演）：当我目睹最令人震惊的场景、死亡、手术、令人作呕的伤口（可能长满了蛆虫）时，我不会放弃或让步。

But often, hours afterward, perhaps when I am home, or out walking alone, I feel sick, and actually tremble.

但通常，几个小时后，也许当我在家或独自外出散步时，我会感到恶心，甚至颤抖。

Yesterday was the worst, many with bad and bloody wounds, inevitably long neglected.

昨天是最糟糕的一天，许多人都受了重伤、流血，不可避免地长期被忽视。

The sight of some cases brought tears to my eyes.

有些案例让我热泪盈眶。

I had the luck yesterday, however, to do some good.

不过，昨天我很幸运，做了一些好事。

Ed Folsom: He would get dressed up and, and, and wash his beard and all the young soldiers would call him old man, even though he was only 40-some years old at the time, because he really did look as one soldier said as Santa Claus coming through the wards and he was carrying his little bag and he would give them candy and he would give them treats and he would he would take down their, their requests for, for small things that he would go and get.

艾德·福尔瑟姆：他会穿好衣服，洗胡子，所有年轻的士兵都会叫他老人，尽管他当时只有 40 多岁，因为他确实看起来像一名士兵所说的圣诞老人穿过病房，他背着他的小袋子，他会给他们糖果，他会给他们零食，他会记下他们的要求，他会去拿一些小东西。

Allan Gurganus: His bag contained tobacco aplenty.

艾伦·古尔加努斯：他的包里装满了烟草。

And like a good mother no child ever got more than the other child.

就像一个好母亲一样，没有一个孩子比另一个孩子得到更多。

He would have notepaper.

他会有信纸。

He would have jelly.

他想要果冻。

He would have pens.

他会有笔。

He would have pickles.

他会吃泡菜。

He would have biscuits.

他会吃饼干。

Any treat that a soldier could have imagined.

任何一个士兵能想象得到的款待。

There was a moment when he gave fifteen cents to one of these boys and the boy said, 'I'm going to buy milk from the milk lady.' And then burst into tears.

有一次，他给了其中一个男孩 15 美分，男孩说：“我要从牛奶女士那里买牛奶。”然后泪流满面。

Ed Folsom: The intensity of that sense of encountering the strangers again and feeling tremendous affection for them, demonstrating that affection.

艾德·福尔瑟姆（Ed Folsom）：再次遇到陌生人并感受到对他们的巨大感情的强烈感觉，展示了这种感情。

Many of the soldiers as they were dying the last kiss they would have, the last moment of affection they would have would be from this bearded poet who had taken time to stop with them.

许多士兵在临终时，他们所得到的最后一个吻、最后一刻的爱意都是来自这位花时间与他们在一起的留着胡须的诗人。

There were these again moments of what he had learned in New York to be those moments of urban affection.

这些时刻又是他在纽约学到的都市情感时刻。

That in the hospital became national affection — all of these soldiers from all over the country, southern soldiers as well as northern soldiers.

医院里的一切都变成了民族感情——所有这些士兵都来自全国各地，南方的士兵，北方的士兵。

There really was a sense in those hospital wards of Whitman encountering the country, the entire nation in a way that he never would in any other form in any other setting.

在惠特曼的医院病房里，确实有一种与国家、整个民族相遇的感觉，这是他在任何其他环境下都不会以任何其他形式感受到的。

They were all there and he would absorb it all, show affection for them all.

他们都在那里，他会吸收这一切，对他们所有人表达爱意。

Walt Whitman (as portrayed by actor: I have spent a long time with Oscar F.

沃尔特·惠特曼（演员饰演：我和奥斯卡·F.

Wilber, Company G, 154th, New York, low with chronic diarrhea and a bad wound also.

威尔伯 (Wilber)，G 公司，纽约 154 号，患有慢性腹泻，伤势严重，伤口也很严重。

He talked of death, and said he did not fear it.

他谈到死亡，并说他并不害怕它。

He behaved very manly and affectionate.

他表现得非常有男子气概和深情。

The kiss I gave him as I was leaving he return'd fourfold.

我离开时给他的吻他回报了四倍。

He died a few days after.

几天后他去世了。

Narrator: Whitman's efforts in the hospitals — 600 visits he figured, to more than 100,000 patients — left him near collapse.

旁白：惠特曼在医院所做的努力——他估计已经到访了 600 次，诊治了超过 100,000 名患者——让他几近崩溃。

He suffered from insomnia, night sweats, night terrors, headaches, sore throat and buzzing in the ears.

他患有失眠、盗汗、夜惊、头痛、喉咙痛、耳鸣等症状。

Alone with his ailments, in a spartan third-floor walk-up ten blocks from the White House, Walt Whitman found strength enough to extend one final and solemn service to the soldiers he'd come to know so well.

沃尔特·惠特曼独自一人带着病痛，在距离白宫十个街区的简朴三楼无电梯公寓里，沃尔特·惠特曼找到了足够的力量，为他非常熟悉的士兵们提供了最后一次庄严的服务。

He opened his notebooks and began sketching his memorial to them all, in a new book of poetry he called Drum-Taps .

他打开笔记本，开始在一本名为《鼓敲击》的新诗集中为他们所有人勾勒出纪念的草图。

Martin Espada: From the stump of the arm, the amputated hand, I undo the clotted lint.

马丁·埃斯帕达（Martin Espada）：我从断臂、截肢的手上解开凝结的线头。

Remove the slough.

去除腐肉。

Wash off the matter and blood.

洗去物质和血迹。

Back on his pillow the soldier bends with curved neck and side falling head.

士兵回到枕头上，弯着脖子，头侧垂。

His eyes are closed.

他的眼睛闭着。

His face is pale.

他的脸色苍白。

He dares not look on the bloody stump and has not yet looked on it.

他不敢看那血淋淋的树桩，也还没有看过。

I am faithful.

我是忠实的。

I do not give out.

我不放弃。

The fractured thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen, these and more I dress with impassive hand.

骨折的大腿、膝盖、腹部的伤口，我用冷漠的手包扎这些伤口。

Yet deep in my breast a fire, a burning flame.

然而我的胸膛深处却有一团火，熊熊燃烧的火焰。

Thus in silence in dreams' projections, Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals, The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand, I sit by the restless all the dark night, some are so young, Some suffer so much.

就这样在梦的投射中默默地， 回来，继续，我穿过医院， 我用抚慰的手安抚受伤的人， 我整个黑夜坐在不安的身边， 有些人如此年轻， 有些人如此受苦。

Narrator: Walt Whitman completed the manuscript for Drum-Taps around the time of Lincoln's second inauguration.

旁白：沃尔特·惠特曼在林肯第二次就职典礼前后完成了《击鼓》的手稿。

A month later Lee surrendered his Army at Appomattox and the bloody fighting was over.

一个月后，李在阿波马托克斯投降了他的军队，血腥的战斗结束了。

Whitman's hero President had saved the Union — and the poet was convinced Abraham Lincoln could repair the national breach.

惠特曼心目中的英雄总统拯救了联邦，而诗人相信亚伯拉罕·林肯能够修复国家的裂痕。

Five days after the surrender — on Good Friday — Walt was back home in Brooklyn with his family.

投降五天后，也就是耶稣受难日，沃尔特和家人回到了布鲁克林的家中。

George was finally home too, after four years at war.

经过四年的战争，乔治终于也回家了。

Jeff was prospering.

杰夫生意兴隆。

Drum-Taps was ready for the printer.

Drum-Taps 已准备好用于打印机。

An early bloom of daffodils, hyacinths and tulips scented Portland Avenue.

波特兰大道上早早盛开的水仙花、风信子和郁金香散发着芬芳。

And there, at his mother's house, Whitman received news of the last sad casualty of the long war.

在那里，在他母亲的家里，惠特曼收到了长期战争中最后一个悲惨伤亡者的消息。

David Reynolds: Southerners as well as Northerners were stunned and were on some level grieved by the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

大卫·雷诺兹：南方人和北方人都对亚伯拉罕·林肯的遇刺感到震惊，并在某种程度上感到悲痛。

So Lincoln becomes in death in a sense a greater version of what he had been in life.

因此，林肯死后在某种意义上成为他生前的更伟大版本。

Billy Collins: Coffin that passes through lanes and streets, Through day and night, with the great cloud darkening the land, With the pomp of the inloop'd flags, with the cities draped in black, With the show of the States themselves, as of crape-veil'd women, standing, With processions long and winding, and the flambeaus of the night, With the countless torches lit-with the silent sea of faces, and the unbared heads,

比利·柯林斯：棺材穿过小巷和街道，从白天到黑夜，乌云笼罩着大地，伴随着内环旗帜的盛况，城市披上了黑色的帷幕，伴随着各州本身的展示，就像披着黑纱的妇女，站立着，伴随着漫长而蜿蜒的游行，伴随着黑夜的火焰，伴随着无数的火把，伴随着沉默的脸海和裸露的头颅，

David Reynolds: Walt Whitman, who above all had been searching for unity, comradeship, togetherness, feels that in the death of Abraham Lincoln we finally have that kind of unity that America had lacked before that.

大卫·雷诺兹：沃尔特·惠特曼一直在寻求团结、同志情谊和团结，他认为，随着亚伯拉罕·林肯的去世，我们终于拥有了美国之前所缺乏的那种团结。

The unity that is finally achieved and that Whitman's early poetry could, couldn't, tried to achieve but never could.

最终实现的统一，以及惠特曼早期诗歌能够、不能、试图实现但从未实现的统一。

Walt Whitman (as portrayed by actor): Then there is a cement to the whole people, subtle, more underlying, than any thing in written constitution, or courts, or armies.

沃尔特·惠特曼（演员饰演）：然后，整个人民就有了一种粘合剂，比成文宪法、法院或军队中的任何东西都微妙、更根本。

Namely, the cement of a death identified thoroughly with that people, at its head, and for its sake.

也就是说，死亡的水泥与那个人彻底认同，在它的领导下，并为了它而存在。

Strange (is it not?) that battles, martyrs, agonies, blood, even assassination, should so condense, perhaps only really, lastingly condense, a Nationality.

奇怪的是（不是吗？） 战斗、烈士、痛苦、鲜血，甚至暗杀，竟然如此凝结，或许只是真正地、持久地凝结了一个民族。

Ed Folsom: It's only going to be after the Civil War that he is going to begin to re-conceive and re-imagine Leaves of Grass so radically that after the Civil War he would actually say at one point that the Civil War is the very heart and the center of Leaves of Grass around which the book works.

艾德·福尔瑟姆：只有在内战之后，他才会开始彻底地重新构思和想象《草叶集》，以至于在内战之后，他实际上会在某一时刻说，内战是《草叶集》的核心和中心，这本书就是围绕着它展开的。

In the 1867 edition he actually sews in, I think of it as an act of suturing, a kind of wartime act or just post wartime act of suturing Drum Taps , the Civil War poems, into the back of Leaves of Grass .

在1867年的版本中，他实际上缝合了，我认为这是一种缝合行为，一种战时行为，或者只是战后将《鼓点》（内战诗歌）缝合到《草叶集》背面的行为。

And in that act he has made the decision that Leaves of Grass is large enough, absorptive enough, broad enough to absorb this national disaster and what new life now for America now can possibly grow out of it.

在这一行动中，他做出了决定，《草叶集》足够大、足够吸收、足够广泛，足以吸收这场国家灾难，以及美国现在可能从中生长出的新生命。

Narrator: The war completed Leaves of Grass and put a period on an era.

旁白：战争完成了《草叶集》，为一个时代划上了句号。

Walt Whitman spent many of the following 25 years confined to a small house he bought in Camden, New Jersey, while the country the poet had so lovingly absorbed faded from view.

在接下来的 25 年里，沃尔特·惠特曼大部分时间都被限制在他在新泽西州卡姆登购买的一所小房子里，而这位诗人如此深爱的国家却从视野中消失了。

Post-war America eluded Whitman's grasp; what grew from the Civil War disappointed.

战后的美国脱离了惠特曼的掌控。内战的结果令人失望。

Whitman added little to Leaves of Grass in the long years after the War.

战后的漫长岁月里，惠特曼对《草叶集》几乎没有任何补充。

He tinkered and edited, pulled some of the more revealing Calamus poems, attached small addenda.

他进行了修改和编辑，摘录了一些更具启发性的菖蒲诗，并附上了小附录。

The aging poet suffered a series of strokes.

这位年迈的诗人遭受了一系列的中风。

His legs failed him.

他的双腿失败了。

His lungs withered.

他的肺部枯萎了。

Abscesses surrounded his heart.

脓肿包围了他的心脏。

One growth eroded a rib, leaving him in excruciating pain.

一根生长物侵蚀了一根肋骨，让他感到极度疼痛。

He had an enlarged prostate, a fatty liver and a gallstone.

他患有前列腺肥大、脂肪肝和胆结石。

Karen Karbiener: At the end of the 1880s he was wheelchair bound and really found one side of his body completely paralyzed.

Karen Karbiener：1880 年代末，他坐在轮椅上，发现身体的一侧完全瘫痪。

So this was a man on all fronts, you know, intellectual, political, personal saw some debilitating changes.

所以这是一个在各个方面都发生了一些令人衰弱的变化的人，你知道，智力、政治、个人方面。

Walt Whitman (as portrayed by actor): Approaching, nearing, curious, thou dim uncertain specter — bringest thou life or death?

沃尔特·惠特曼（演员饰演）：接近、接近、好奇，你这个模糊而不确定的幽灵——给你带来生还是死？

Strength, weakness, blindness, more paralysis and heavier?

强弱、失明、更瘫、更重？

Or placid skies and sun?

还是平静的天空和阳光？

Wilt stir the waters yet or haply cut me short for good?

会搅动水流还是可能永远打断我？

Or leave me here as now, Dull, parrot like and old, with crack'd voice harping, screeching?

或者像现在一样把我留在这里，迟钝，像鹦鹉一样，老了，用嘶哑的声音竖琴，尖叫？

Karen Karbiener: You have poems that are complaining about old age and about cricketiness.

凯伦·卡比纳：你有一些诗是抱怨年老和板球运动。

He even writes about his body's condition.

他甚至写下了自己的身体状况。

You learn he's got diarrhea, you know.

你知道他患有腹泻，你知道的。

But to him that's important.

但对他来说这很重要。

He's putting his body on paper.

他正在把自己的身体写在纸上。

But there's something else too.

但还有其他事情。

There's an idea that there's something beyond the body.

有一种观念认为，有某种东西超越了身体。

It's as if he knows he's got to leave that shell behind, and yet there's something to look forward to also.

就好像他知道他必须把那个外壳抛在身后，但同时也有一些值得期待的东西。

Walt Whitman (as portrayed by actor): Ah whispering, something again unseen Where late this heated day thou enterest at my window, Thou laving, tempering all, cool- freshing, gently vitalizing Me, old, alone sick, weak-down, melted, worn with sweat Thou, nestling, folding close and firm yet soft, Companion better than talk, book, art.

沃尔特·惠特曼（演员饰演）：啊，耳语，又是看不见的东西，在这个炎热的日子里，你进入我的窗前，你辛勤地劳作，调和一切，凉爽清新，轻轻地使我充满活力，年老，孤独，生病，虚弱，融化，被汗水磨损，你依偎着，紧密地折叠在一起，坚定而柔软，比谈话，书籍，艺术更好的伴侣。

Martin Espada: What's striking to me is how he lets down his guard and how he honestly expresses himself as a, a sick, old man, grateful for a moment's breeze which may or may not be indicative of something out there in the universe.

马丁·埃斯帕达（Martin Espada）：令我印象深刻的是，他如何放松警惕，如何诚实地表达自己是一个生病的老人，对片刻的微风表示感激，这可能表明也可能不表明宇宙中存在某种东西。

Walt Whitman (as portrayed by actor): So sweet thy primitive taste to breathe within, Thy soothing fingers on my face and hands, Thou, messenger-magical strange bringer to body and spirit of me, (Distances balked — occult medicines penetrating me from head to foot) I feel the sky, the prairies vast — I feel the mighty northern lakes, I feel the ocean and the forest — somehow I feel the globe itself swift swimming in space; Thou blown from lips so loved, now gone Haply from endless store, God-sent, (For thou art spiritual, Godly) Minister to speak to me, here and now, what word has never told and cannot tell, Hast thou no soul?

沃尔特·惠特曼（演员饰演）：你呼吸的原始味道如此甜美，你抚慰我的脸和手的手指，你，神奇的使者，神奇的陌生使者，给我的身体和精神，（距离阻碍——神秘的药物从头到脚渗透我）我感觉到天空，广阔的草原——我感觉到强大的北方湖泊，我感觉到海洋和森林——不知怎的，我感觉到地球本身在太空中快速游泳；你从深爱的嘴唇中被吹出来，现在很可能从无尽的储存中消失了，上帝派来的，（因为你是属灵的，虔诚的）在此时此地对我说话，有什么词从未告诉过也不能告诉过，你没有灵魂吗？

Can I not know, identify thee?

难道我不知道，认不出你吗？

Narrator: Walt Whitman died in Camden, New Jersey, in 1892.

旁白：沃尔特·惠特曼 1892 年在新泽西州卡姆登去世。

His life's work, Leaves of Grass == which he had tended obsessively, for thirty-five years, through seven separate editions == had grown from 95 pages and twelve poems to 400 pages and more than 300 poems.

他毕生的作品《草叶集》==是他痴迷的作品，三十五年来，经过七个不同的版本==已经从95页和12首诗增加到400页和300多首诗。

No wife survived him, and no children; he left his most cherished possession, Leaves of Grass , to anyone who would have it.

他没有留下妻子，也没有孩子。他把他最珍贵的财产《草叶集》留给了任何想要拥有它的人。

Walt Whitman (as portrayed by actor: I depart as air.

沃尔特·惠特曼（演员饰演：我如空气般离去。

I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies and drift it in lacy jags.

我在失控的太阳下摇晃我的白发，我在漩涡中喷洒我的肉体，并在花边锯齿中漂流。

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot soles.

我将自己遗赠给泥土，让我所爱的草生长，如果你想要我再次在你的靴底下寻找我。

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood.

你几乎不会知道我是谁或我的意思，但无论如何我都会为你带来健康，并过滤和纤维你的血液。

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another.

一开始没能找到我，请继续鼓励，想念我一个地方寻找另一个地方。

I stop somewhere waiting for you.

我在某个地方停下来等你。

(On-screen text): Walt Whitman printed 795 copies of the first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855.

（屏幕上的文字）：沃尔特·惠特曼 (Walt Whitman) 于 1855 年印刷了 795 份第一版《草叶集》。

About two dozen sold.

大约卖出了两打。

(On-screen text): In 2008, millions of copies of Leaves of Grass are in circulation around the world.

（屏幕上的文字）：2008年，《草叶集》在世界各地流通了数百万册。

From his working class childhood in Long Island, to a newspaper reporter in Brooklyn, and his reckless pursuit of the attention and affection he craved for his work.

从他在长岛的工人阶级童年，到布鲁克林的一名报社记者，以及他对工作所渴望的关注和喜爱的不计后果的追求。

Still widely read today, it serves as an autobiography of sorts, recording some of the most tumultuous decades of American history.

它至今仍被广泛阅读，可以说是一本自传，记录了美国历史上最动荡的几十年。

The poet drew inspiration from New York City.

诗人从纽约市汲取灵感。

His books celebrated the urban bustle he loved.

他的书颂扬了他喜爱的城市喧嚣。

Explore Whitman's calling as a poet, and the idea of a national poet.

探索惠特曼作为诗人的使命以及民族诗人的理念。

There was one man whose praise Whitman desired and cherished more than any other: Ralph Waldo Emerson.

有一个人比任何人都更渴望和珍惜惠特曼的赞美：拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生。

Whitman did not have a high opinion of the ten percent of Brooklyn residents who were of African descent, yet he thought slavery abhorrent.

惠特曼对布鲁克林居民中百分之十的非洲人后裔评价不高，但他认为奴隶制令人憎恶。

While in Washington, D.C., Whitman discovered that he had something to contribute to the war effort — himself.

在华盛顿特区期间，惠特曼发现他可以为战争做出贡献——他自己。

Although he did not have much formal schooling, Whitman was alive to the world around him, wandering through the natural bounty of Long Island and through the streets of Brooklyn and Manhattan.

尽管惠特曼没有受过多少正规教育，但他对周围的世界充满活力，漫步在长岛的自然风光中，穿过布鲁克林和曼哈顿的街道。

Walt Whitman offers insights into social studies topics including the Civil War and the impact of war on soldiers and their families.

沃尔特·惠特曼对社会研究主题提供了见解，包括内战以及战争对士兵及其家人的影响。

Walt Whitman offered up his poetry as a perfect reflection of the America he saw.

沃尔特·惠特曼的诗歌完美地反映了他所看到的美国。