17. In a Disused Graveyard / New Hampshire(1923) - Robert Frost
The living come with grassy tread
To read the gravestones on the hill;
The graveyard draws the living still,
But never anymore the dead.
The verses in it say and say:
"The ones who living come today
To read the stones and go away
Tomorrow dead will come to stay."
So sure of death the marbles rhyme,
Yet can't help marking all the time
How no one dead will seem to come.
What is it men are shrinking from?
It would be easy to be clever
And tell the stones: Men hate to die
And have stopped dying now forever.
I think they would believe the lie.
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묵은 묘지에서
살아 있는 사람들은 풀을 밟고 와서
언덕 위의 묘석들을 읽는다.
그 묘지는 살아 있는 사람들을 아직 끌어오지만,
더 이상 죽은 사람들을 끌어오지는 않는다.
묘지의 비문들은 하나같이 말한다.
"묘석들을 읽고 떠나려고
오늘 살아서 오는 사람들은
내일 죽어서 여기 올 것이다."
대리석들은 죽음을 확신하고 노래하지만,
죽은 자가 아무도 오지 않는다는 사실을
항상 주목하지 않을 수 없다.
사람들이 꽁무니를 빼는 게 무엇이지?
재치를 발휘하여 묘석들에게 이렇게
대답하면 편하리라. 죽기를 싫어해서
이제는 인간들이 영원히 죽기를 중단했지요.
묘석들은 아마 이 거짓말을 믿을 것이다.
-신재실 옮김-
단상(斷想): 어느 번성하던 마을이 있었다. 덩달아 뒷산 공동묘지도 번성했다. 이제 그 공동묘지는 더 이상 사용되지 않는다. 마을이 쇠퇴하면서 죽어 묘지에 묻히는 사람도 사라졌기 때문이다. 죽은 묘지에는 죽은 사람들은 오지 않고 간혹 산 사람들만 온다. 대부분 호기심으로 찾는 나그네들이다.
대리석 비석들은 생자필멸(生者必滅)을 말한다. “오늘 살아서 오는 사람들은/ 내일 죽어서 여기 올 것이다." 그런데 이제 죽어서 여기 오는 사람들이 없으니, 어찌 된 일인가? 죽으면 이리 편한데, 사람들이 죽음이 두려워 꽁무니를 빼는 것인가?
사람들은 죽기를 두려워한다. 죽지 않고 영원히 사는 것이 인간의 꿈이다. 그러니 비석들에게 이렇게 거짓말을 하리라. “죽기를 싫어해서/ 이제는 인간들이 영원히 죽기를 중단했지요.” 실제로 이제 아무도 죽은 사람들의 행렬에 들어오지 않기에, 죽은 자들은 쉽게 믿을 것이다. 사실 그들도 죽기 전에는 죽음의“두려움”에 떨지 않았는가?
-신재실 씀-
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youtu.be/kirK8l-kEVw
youtu.be/lKFjnVIEWpk
youtu.be/jE6YHI5cVrA
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ROBERT FROST
SPEAKING ON CAMPUS
Contents
Introduction
Getting up things to say for yourself
Where poetry comes in
Handling figures of speech
“Anxiety for the Liberal Arts”
A book side to everything
Not freedom from, but freedom of
Of rapid reading and what we call “completion”
No surprise to me, no surprise to anybody else
Pieces of knitting to go on with
Everything in the world comes in pairs
My kind of fooling
About “the great misgiving”
Wondering how convictions are had
Something you live by till you live by something else
Some gamble—something of uncertainty
The future of the world
Hang around for the refinement of sentiment
What I think I’m doing when I write a poem
Of the “elect” and the “elected”
Fall in love at sight
Thinking about generalizations
“In on the Ground Floor”
A certain restlessness
About thinking and of perishing to shine
A gentler interest in the fine things
Let’s say bravely…that poetry counts
I’ll tell you a little about my walks
Editor’s Note
References
Some gamble—something of uncertainty
Mr. Frost’s engagement at Boston University on October 30, 1958, was less than a week before the national biennial elections, and in his opening remarks he alluded to the fact that on the Massachusetts ballot that year there would be a referendum question pertaining to whether pari-mutuel betting on horse and dog racing would be allowed within the respective counties of the state.
I’VE BEEN TALKINGvarious ways various places lately, and it just occurred to me tonight that I think you’re all having to vote on an interesting subject here. I’m not, because I’m a Vermonter. But I believe you’re all voting on the subject of gambling, aren’t you? Is that going on here in Massachusetts?
Many thoughts about that, I’ve had. The common thought is that it’s a minor evil that will go on, anyway, and you might as well profit by it. Now, that’s low, isn’t it?
But there is another strange thing that I’ve thought of many times: that if my life hadn’t gamble in it, I would buy some gamble, the Irish Sweepstakes or something. Probably would—I don’t know; I’ve never been without gamble, daily gamble.
You see, life is like that: love and need or love and desire, and enterprise and gamble. And the love should include desire, shouldn’t it? And the enterprise should include gamble. And you shouldn’t have to go outside for the desire or outside for the gamble—shouldn’t have to. That’s the high way of looking at it.
I sort of pity the people on the production line, who don’t see what it’s all about and have no gamble in their lives, unlessit’s in having an occasional riotous strike; something like that. And you can sympathize with it, the strike, because it introduces into their life something of uncertainty. They may get knocked on the head.
So, I just wanted to say that. And, now, in my poems, always along, I say things like this—in one line and pass over them, whether they get noticed or not. I say somewhere:
But yield who will to their separation…
You see, the two things, separating the gamble from the enterprise.—
That is, the “vocation” is the regular part of it; the “avocation” is the irregular part of it, the gambler part of it. To unite them—
And I’m sure people have misunderstood that a lot, where I say, “And the work is play for mortal stakes.” They think I mean the work is play. No, I mean the work is a gamble. You see? I want to put a hyphen into that; I should. The next time I print that I shall have it, “And the work is play-for-mortal-stakes.” You see, the work is a gamble.—
to any great purpose.
It’s got to have that element in it. There must be uncertainty in it. And you can make what you please of that. You can make your religion out of that.
And I’m perfectly unscrupulous in saying that if I hadn’t any enterprise at all that I can call an enterprise of my own, and there was no uncertainty in it, I’d buy some tickets in the Irish Sweepstakes, so I wouldn’t know what might not happen to me anytime. I’d dedicate a certain amount of my miserable little bit to introducing some uncertainty into my dull life.
You do that about all things. Of course, you don’t need to set any money on it at all. You go to games, and all you have to do is to set your heart on one side or the other, and win or lose with ’em. You go home defeated or victorious with the team. You get your uncertainty of an afternoon.
Some people work themselves all up. They get way up, a hope on one touchdown. And then they get way down on two touchdowns by the other side. And they scream and holler.