4. The Star-splitter / New Hampshire(1923) - Robert Frost

4. The Star-splitter / New Hampshire(1923) - Robert Frost

"You know Orion always comes up sideways.

Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains,

And rising on his hands, he looks in on me

Busy outdoors by lantern-light with something

I should have done by daylight, and indeed,

After the ground is frozen, I should have done

Before it froze, and a gust flings a handful

fling : 바람

Of waste leaves at my smoky lantern chimney

To make fun of my way of doing things,

Or else fun of Orion's having caught me.

Has a man, I should like to ask, no rights

These forces are obliged to pay respect to?"

So Brad McLaughlin mingled reckless talk

Of heavenly stars with hugger-mugger farming,

hugger-mugger : 난잡한, 혼란

Till having failed at hugger-mugger farming

He burned his house down for the fire insurance

And spent the proceeds on a telescope

To satisfy a lifelong curiosity

About our place among the infinities.

"What do you want with one of those blame things?"

blame : 비난을 받는

I asked him well beforehand. "Don't you get one!"

"Don't call it blamed; there isn't anything

More blameless in the sense of being less

A weapon in our human fight," he said.

"I'll have one if I sell my farm to buy it."

There where he moved the rocks to plow the ground

And plowed between the rocks he couldn't move,

Few farms changed hands; so rather than spend years

Trying to sell his farm and then not selling,

He burned his house down for the fire insurance

And bought the telescope with what it came to.

He had been heard to say by several:

"The best thing that we're put here for's to see;

The strongest thing that's given us to see with's

A telescope. Someone in every town

Seems to me owes it to the town to keep one.

In Littleton it may as well be me."

After such loose talk it was no surprise

When he did what he did and burned his house down.

Mean laughter went about the town that day

To let him know we weren't the least imposed on,

And he could wait―we'd see to him tomorrow.

But the first thing next morning we reflected

If one by one we counted people out

For the least sin, it wouldn't take us long

To get so we had no one left to live with.

For to be social is to be forgiving.

Our thief, the one who does our stealing from us,

We don't cut off from coming to church suppers,

But what we miss we go to him and ask for.

He promptly gives it back, that is if still

Uneaten, unworn out, or undisposed of.

It wouldn't do to be too hard on Brad

About his telescope. Beyond the age

Of being given one for Christmas gift,

He had to take the best way he knew how

To find himself in one. Well, all we said was

He took a strange thing to be roguish over.

roguish : 악한의, 못된, 무법적인

Some sympathy was wasted on the house,

A good old-timer dating back along;

But a house isn't sentient; the house

Didn't feel anything. And if it did,

Why not regard it as a sacrifice,

And an old-fashioned sacrifice by fire,

Instead of a new-fashioned one at auction?

Out of a house and so out of a farm

At one stroke (of a match), Brad had to turn

To earn a living on the Concord railroad,

As under-ticket-agent at a station

Where his job, when he wasn't selling tickets,

Was setting out, up track and down, not plants

As on a farm, but planets, evening stars

That varied in their hue from red to green.

He got a good glass for six hundred dollars.

His new job gave him leisure for stargazing.

Often he bed me come and have a look

Up the brass barrel, velvet black inside,

At a star quaking in the other end.

I recollect a night of broken clouds

And underfoot snow melted down to ice,

And melting further in the wind to mud.

Bradford and I had out the telescope.

We spread our two legs as we spread its three,

Pointed our thought the way we pointed it,

And standing at our leisure till the day broke,

Said some of the best things we ever said.

That telescope was christened the Star-Splitter,

Because it didn't do a thing but split

A star in two or three, the way you split

A globule of quicksilver in your hand

globule : 소구 립, 알약,방울

quicksilver : 수은

With one stroke of your finger in the middle.

It's a star-splitter if there ever was one,

And ought to do some good if splitting stars

'Sa thing to be compared with splitting wood.

We've looked and looked, but after all where are we?

Do we know any better where we are,

And how it stands between the night tonight

And a man with smoky lantern chimney?

How different from the way it ever stood?

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별 쪼개는 기구

"알다시피 오리온은 항상 비스듬히 뜨지요.

한쪽 발을 휙 던져 병풍 친 산들 위에 걸치고는,

양손을 짚고 떠올라서, 내게 눈웃음을 치지요.

나는 밝을 때 했어야 할 바깥일을 등불을 켜고,

땅마저 얼어버린 후에 하느라고 분주하지요.

땅이 얼기 전에 할 일을 이제 하고 있으니,

그런 내 꼬락서니를 조롱하거나, 그게 아니면

오리온이 날 낚은 것을 조롱하려는 듯, 돌풍(突風)이

연기 뿜는 내 등불 연통에 낙엽 쓰레기를 한 줌 팽개치지요.

사람에게는 이러한 세력들이 마땅히 존중해야 할

권리들이 있지 않겠소? 라고 난 묻고 싶어요."

이렇게 브래드 맥러플린은 하늘의 별들에 대한

엉뚱한 이야기와 농사일을 혼동하고 있었기에,

뒤죽박죽인 농사일에는 결국 실패하고

자기 집을 불태워 화재보험금을 타서,

무한 공간에서의 우리의 위치에 대한

평생의 호기심을 충족시키고자

그 수익금을 망원경 구입에 썼다.

"도대체 그딴 것들을 가지고 뭘 하려고요?"

나는 훨씬 전에 그에게 물었다. "그런 것 사지 말아요!"

그는 말했다. "그딴 것이라니요.

인간의 싸움에서 무기가 덜 된다는 의미에서

그것보다 더 죄 없는 게 없잖아요.

농장을 팔아서 구입하더라도 하나 가질래요."

그가 돌들을 치우고 땅을 갈거나, 치울 수 없는

바윗돌은 피해서 사이사이를 갈았던 곳에서는,

주인이 바뀌는 농장들이 별로 없었기에, 그는

농장을 팔려고 몇 년을 허비하다 못 파느니,

차라리 화재 보험금을 노려 자기 집을 태우고

그것으로 들어온 돈으로 망원경을 샀다.

몇 사람들에게 그는 이렇게 말했었다.

"우리가 여기 존재하는 최고의 가치는 보는 것이고,

보도록 우리에게 주어진 최고로 강력한 도구는

망원경이죠. 타운의 지원을 받아서 망원경을

보유하는 사람이 타운 마다 있는 것 같아요.

리틀턴에서는 내가 바로 그 사람이 될까 합니다."

그렇게 흘게 늦은 말을 한 뒤였기에 그가 급기야

집을 불태우고 말았을 때 별로 놀라지도 않았다.

그날 야릇한 웃음소리가 온 마을에 퍼져서

우리는 결코 속지 않았으며, 좀 생각해보고―

내일 그를 처리할 예정임을 그에게 알렸다.

그러나 다음날 아침 제일먼저 생각한 것은

만약 우리가 하찮은 죄로 사람들을 하나씩

제외(除外)하면, 그런지 얼마 되지 않아서

같이 살 사람이 하나도 없게 될 거라는 거였다.

사회적이라는 것은 용서하는 것 아닌가?

우리의 도둑, 우리를 후무린 자가

교회 만찬에 오는 것을, 우리는 막지 않고,

그에게 가서 없어진 것을 그에게 청한다.

그것을 아직 먹지 않고, 입지 않고, 처분하지

않았으면, 그는 즉시 그것을 돌려준다.

망원경에 대해 브래드에게 너무 심하게 굴면

좋지 않을 것이다. 망원경을 하나

크리스마스 선물로 받을 나이가 지났으니,

그는 하나 구하는데 그가 아는 최선의 방법을

쓸 수밖에 없었다. 우리는 그가 짓궂은 호기심 어린

이상한 물건 하나 구했다고 말했을 뿐이었다.

그의 집은 역사가 꽤 오린 고옥(古屋)이었기에,

그 집에 대해 우리는 약간의 연민을 쏟았지만,

집은 감각이 없는 것이기에, 그 집은

아무런 느낌도 없었다. 그리고 느꼈다 해도,

그것을 하나의 제물(祭物)로 보지 않을 이유는 없다.

그것은 경매에 희생되는 현대식 제물이 아니라,

불에 희생되는 구식 제물이었다.

(성냥 하나)한번 찍 그어, 집을 떠나고

농장을 떠나, 브래드는 방향을 바꿔

콩코드 철도에서, 어느 정거장의

매표 보조원으로, 생활비를 벌어야 했다.

표를 팔지 않을 때, 그가 하는 일은,

농장에서처럼 작물이 아니라 트랙을 오르내리며,

행성들, 빨강에서 초록까지 색깔이 다양한

저녁의 신호등들을 준비하는 것이었다.

그는 육백 달러에 좋은 망원경을 샀다.

그의 새 직업은 그에게 별을 응시할 여가(餘暇)를 주었다.

그는 자주 나를 불러서 놋쇠 통 위쪽 하늘을 보여줬는데,

내부가 벨벳처럼 까만 놋쇠통의 저쪽 끝에

떨고 있는 별 하나가 보이곤 했다.

구름이 걷히고 발밑의 눈이 녹아 빙판이 되고,

바람에 더욱 녹아 진창이 된 어느 밤이 기억난다.

브래드와 나는 망원경을 끄집어냈다.

우리는 두 다리를 벌리고 서서 그것의 세 다리를 벌리고,

우리 생각의 과녁마저 그것의 과녁에 맞췄다.

그리고 우리는 동이 틀 때까지 한가로이 서서,

이제껏 말했던 몇 가지 최고의 말들을 나누었다.

손 안에 든 수은(水銀) 알을 당신의 가운데 손가락으로

일격에 쪼개듯이, 그것은 별을 둘 또는 셋으로

쪼개는 일 이외에 아무것도 하지 않았기 때문에,

우리는 망원경을「별 쪼개는 기구」라고 명명했다.

별 쪼개는 기구가 있다면 그건 바로 망원경이고,

별을 쪼개는 일이 장작을 쪼개는 일에 비견될

일이라면 무언가 이득이 될 것이 틀림없다.

우리는 보고 또 보았지만, 우리는 결국 어디에 있는가?

우리는 우리가 어디에 있으며, 그것이 오늘의 밤과

연기 뿜는 등불 연통을 든 사람의 사이를

어떻게 가로막는지 우리는 더 잘 아는가?

별은 이제까지의 모습과 얼마나 다른가?

-신재실 옮김-

단상(斷想): 인간의 최고 존재 가치는 무엇인가? 이 시의 주인공은 “우리가 여기 존재하는 최고의 가치는 보는 것”이고, “보도록 우리에게 주어진 최고로 강력한 도구는 망원경”이라고 말한다. 세속적 영역에 자신을 가두지 않고 형이상학적 세계를 발견하려는 노력은 존중 받아 마땅할 것이고, “무한 공간에서의 우리의 위치”를 알기 위해서 우주 공간의 수많은 별에 관심을 갖는 것은 당연한 우리의 권리이자 의무일 것이다.

문제는 그 방법과 효용일 것이다. 브래드는 농부지만 농사일보다는 밤하늘의 별을 보는 일에 더 열중한다. 그에게는 별을 볼 수 있는 최고의 기구, 망원경이 필요하다. 그러나 그의 척박한 농토와 고옥은 팔리지도 않을 것이기에 망원경을 구할 가망이 없다. 급기야 그는 집을 태우고, 화재 보험금으로 망원경을 구입한다. 부정한 방법을 쓴 것이다. 화자(話者)를 비롯한 동네 사람들은 고민한다. 그를 고발할 것인가? 그러나 그들이 “제일먼저 생각한 것은/ 만약 우리가 하찮은 죄로 사람들을 하나씩/ 제외(除外)하면, 그런지 얼마 되지 않아서/ 같이 살 사람이 하나도 없게 될 거라는 거였다./ 사회적이라는 것은 용서하는 것 아닌가?” 그들은 공동체를 유지하기 위해서 그를 용서했다.

브래드는 무사히 망원경을 구했다. 철도에서 표도 팔고 저녁이면 철도 신호등을 준비하는 일로 생계를 유지하면서, “별을 응시할 여가(餘暇)”를 즐겼다. 화자도 함께 참가하여 “동이 틀 때까지 한가로이 서서” 별을 관찰하며 “최고의 말들을 나눴던” 밤도 있었다. 그러나 그들은 무엇을 보았는가? 망원경은 둘 또는 셋으로 쪼개진 별 이외에 아무것도 보여주지 않았다.

망원경은 전체적인 사물의 모습을 보여주지 않는다. 인간은 완전한 사물의 이치를 볼 수 없다. 하지만 망원경 보기는 과연 쓸모없는 일인가? “별을 쪼개는 일이 장작을 쪼개는 일에 비견될/ 일이라면 무언가 이득이 될 것이 틀림없다.”

장작을 쪼개는 일은 하찮은 일일 수 있지만, 짝짝 갈라지는 나무에 온 힘을 쏟는 것은 결코 헛된 일은 아닐 것이다. 도락(道樂)과 노동(勞動)을 하나로 결합하는 것, 그것이 삶의 의미이고 재미 아니겠는가? 그 결합이 합당한 절차와 방법에 따른 것이라야 할 것이지만, 이게 쉬운 일인가?

-신재실 씀-

출처 : http://blog.naver.com/PostList.nhn?from=postList&blogId=js9660&categoryNo=31¤tPage=51

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youtu.be/inuAKbtMCl0

youtu.be/hqyfbKaGKiE

youtu.be/nGQI6dOTpo8

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Where poetry comes in

“Philosophy versus Wisdom” was the title of the Great Issues Course lecture given by Mr. Frost at Dartmouth on May 7, 1951, from which this excerpt has been taken. His incidental references to “talk right now down in Washington” and to “before any of this happened” relate to then-acute public concern for, as well as Congressional investigation of, criminal and corrupt practices both within and relating to the federal government.

I GET ASKED now and then, right out of a crowd, out of a forum or something—(I don’t see many forums. This comes as near a forum as anything I face.)—but I get asked once in a while, “What philosophy has poetry, for a time like this?” You see, every commencement address begins like that: “In troubled times like this….”

And of course the first thing to say about that, all times have been troubled, haven’t they? I was looking at Matthew Arnold, and there’s nothing but the trouble of that time through his poetry. You go back to Wordsworth, and he has a poem beginning:

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:

England hath need of thee: she is a fen

Of stagnant waters:…

You see, just like now.—

…altar, sword, and pen…

That is, the church, literature, and the army; all corrupt, he says.—

Have forfeited their ancient English dower

Of inward happiness….10

He thinks all the “inward”—which, again, is this thing that Shakespeare was talking about, the “inward happiness” part of it—he thought that was all gone: the inward happiness. And that’s what some people think now.

Well, the answer is that I don’t believe poetry has any philosophy for offer. To make a kind of poetic allegory or myth—Platonic sort of myth—let me put it this way: God sent into the world three things—just three, great things; the greatest things. Two of them were beliefs, and one of them was unbelief.

And one of the beliefs calls itself a “belief” and uses that word for itself all the time: true religion. (Though, it always has second breaths. It’ll say, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”11 Unbelief goes with it, in true religion.) And the other belief, that doesn’t always know it’s only a belief, is science.

And the religion believes that you can’t get human happiness in this world unless you think of an ultimate happiness in another world. And science believes—(It’s a belief, too. Doesn’t say so, but it ought to be reminded once in so often.)—it believes that some way or other, by piling up knowledge and going on from to know and to know and to know, that we can get human happiness here. […]

I’ve named religion and science as the two great beliefs. And you can trace ’em, anytime you want to. You can look at ’em and just see what their value is.

And the third thing that God sent into the world, like a goddess or something, is the unbelief called “philosophy”—which is never its true self and never good when it isn’t doubting, when it isn’t pruning and trimming and combing the dead hair out of the two beliefs—like combing a dog, combing dogs.

Now, you look back. That sends your mind back over some of the philosophers you know. They do—from their powerful position, of an almost all-powerful position—they try to help out the two beliefs now and then, when the poor things don’t know what to say for themselves. They try to rationalize for ’em

And the two beliefs themselves, when they get worried about the unbelief of philosophy, they become theologists. You’ll find the religious people stealing from philosophy—stealing off into it, currying favor with philosophy, by becoming theologists. And you’ll see the scientists doing the same thing—very much in our time; they’ve never done it so much as in our time. They’ve reached in and become Jeanses and Eddingtons. They’ve become what you call “sciologists,” I guess.

Now, after I’ve said that and given you a chance to look it over, I wonder if you’re wondering where I say poetry would come in. Well, it doesn’t come in anywhere there. It doesn’t match with those things at all.

It plays around over the surface of all those things, just the same as you do. You don’t take any definite position in religion, and you don’t take any definite position in science—though you’re more in danger of doing that. And you don’t adopt any one philosophy, any one skepticism.

See, all I think of in Socrates was the negative side. I heard a fine old man say the other day, “Well, I don’t like you to use the words ‘the negative side.’” Said, “I don’t think it’s nice to think about negative things.”

But the negative is the cleansing. It’s Socrates’ demons that told him “no” and nothing else—never told him “yes” once; always told him “no.” And that’s what he was there for, to disturb the boys with “no,” on the street corner—Alcibiades and the rest of ’em. That’s why they gave him poison, in the end. The town couldn’t stand him.

Now, poetry comes in like this. I don’t want the word “philosophy” for it at all; I don’t. I want the word “wisdom”—little scraps of wisdom, little flashes of insight, just the same as you get every day among people.

You’ll hear people say, “Once bit, twice shy.” That’s almost poetry, you see—the language is so queer, that use of “twice.” “Once bit, twice shy.” A lot to think about in that, a lot to think about. It doesn’t say “twice” anything worse than “shy”—just “shy” guarded the second time. It doesn’t say “clear out,” you know—just “shy.”

We live with those things. We vote with ’em. We go to school with ’em. We play games with ’em. I’m not going to enumerate too many of them. Let me show you a few—and one or two in poetry, just to show you they’re the same.

I often think a poem is nothing but a momentary stay against confusion. It’s got something in it that’s like that, that holds the moments for you, anyway—stops the confusion.

Now, take what I’m saying tonight about the three things God sent into the world—the three great ladies: two beliefs and one unbelief—to serve for the duration of the piece (p-i-e-c-e).

Somebody said I’m the champion exaggerator. Well, I’m not. I’m the honestest man there is. I never tell a lie. What I say there’s always something to, anyway. Seems there’s something to that.

I’ll show you a deuce tonight for the fun of it, for your diversion: a couple of my own poems. I don’t know whether poetry gets dragged in here or not. But she does tonight.

For years I’ve heard friends of mine, writers, say that we were to blame for the Revolution. The English weren’t to blame at all, the British. We were to blame.

I knew someone who wrote that so successfully that the British would always lend him a battleship to go anywhere he pleased in. His name was [deliberately unintelligible mumble]. Can you hear me?

Then, I knew somebody else who said that all the best people—all the best people—pulled out of here when the Revolution began and went to live in Canada. And they’re sitting up there in Canada talking about it at teatime now.

That’s always bothered me a little. And I always hate the kind of the pettiness of that kind of thing. There’s a largeness, there must be, beyond all that. And years ago I wrote a poem that must have been in answer to that, unconscious answer to that. It’s a short poem in blank verse that I’m going to say to you, to show the kind of momentary stay against all the confusion that there is in that kind of talk.

There is today. Most of the talk right now down in Washington, that’s going on, is very fine, very dignified. But there’s a pettiness about the questions that are up. The main question is in danger of getting forgotten. It won’t be. It’ll emerge. Somebody’ll keep it there, or between them they’ll get to it in the end, after much pettiness of “You said this.” and “No, I didn’t say that; you said it.” and “Were you awake at Wake Island?”

Well, sometime—after not getting too angry about all this confusion that you listen to—sometime a little clarification emerges. Years ago I wrote this, mind you. That’s what I want you to notice: years ago. It’s the history of the Revolutionary War. If I were to write a prose book, it would be no more than this, a whole book of prose on the history of the Revolutionary War. It virtually says this—(This makes it fit in with what’s going on now, though I wrote it years ago.)—it’s this: That war was the beginning of the end of colonialism. That’s all it was.

No one was to blame on either side. ’Twas the beginning of the end of a great thing. Taught the British something; they took a hitch in their trousers and began over again, began to make it 

[Mr. Frost said his poem “The Gift Outright.”]

There’s no whole philosophy in that, is there, unless it’s implied? There’s nothing more horrible to me than to have someone say I’m Platonic or Hegelian. I don’t belong that way. That isn’t where I am. I’m scatterbrained, that’s all—bits of wisdom here and there, scraps of wisdom. […]

[Mr. Frost said his poem ultimately titled “America Is Hard to See,” identifying it as “a rather recent one,” and he commented on its line “On how to crowd but still be kind,” saying: “You see, that’s socialism. It’s my latest on socialism. I’m always taking a new shot at it.”]

Now, three or four other places in the course of my lifetime I’ve made a stab at socialism, in a kind of generous effort to understand it. I was brought up on Henry George and Poverty and Progress. An old family friend he was. And, so, I saw in capital letters very young—(In capital letters, way back; I don’t know, back in the eighties or nineties sometime—in the eighties, I’d think.)—I saw for the first time the “HAVES” and the “HAVE NOTS” done in capital letters.

So, there it is, always in front of you. And what you going to say to it?

And look at it. Seems to come, come, come—come on, come on, you know—the socialism, in some form or other. There are all sorts of disguises for it—such as being taken care of by the state, being what some people call “stated.”

Another place I say—just showing you how poetry has just little glimpses of it—another place I say […] we’ll all be “selfless foragers.” I speak of “Our selfless forager Jerry”—Jerry being an ant I happen to know (a-n-t). “Our selfless forager Jerry.”12

And another time, somewhere else—Anymore I don’t remember the words, but the idea goes like this: I’ve heard of the law of diminishing returns, and you’ve heard of it more than I have. But I pick a thing like that, the law of diminishing returns: Sure, yeah; maybe it’s by the law of diminishing returns we arrive at socialism.

That’s just another stab. It helps me for the moment. I sleep that night. […]

Some people say we ought to get out of this by betting our bottom dollar. (That’s Marshall Plan!) And then somebody else will point out—or ought to point out—that there’s something deeper than that. We have that slang; we say, “I’ll bet my bottom dollar.” And there’s another one: “You bet your sweet life.”

And who’d win, the person that had bet his bottom dollar or the person that had bet his sweet life, if that’s what it’d come to? It’s forced on us—apparently, forced on us.

Well, that’s all before any of this happened. But that’s on my mind always. It comes, emerges in some little line. It isn’t a whole philosophy and doesn’t pretend to be. There’s a certain amount of common wisdom in it.

It lies in those two slangs. Aren’t they pretty ones: “You bet your bottom dollar” and “You bet your sweet life”? That’s American philosophy versus Russian, right now. Ain’t it hell to have to say so?