《以赛亚书》第40章中的多种声音

The Many Voices of Isaiah 40

在《以赛亚书》第40章这首尽管有着意识形态瑕疵但却十分卓越的诗歌中,存在着一曲名符其实的声音大合奏;但是,并非所有声音都能找到说话者。我们得到的印象,就如无意中偷听到了一场处于不认识的人中间、我们无法鉴别发言者的会谈。这正是诗人想要造成的状态。我不能肯定自己能阻止住诗人保守秘密的愿望,但尝试澄清他留下的模糊处、认明他隐藏的秘密处,乃是本文想要完成的任务。对于我们的诗人而言,宗教活在话语的世界中,不在祭仪的世界中;它由声音——对话,讨论,命令,责备,反诘,提问——的交替转换所构成。这多种声音被采纳,去创造出《以赛亚书》第40章所指称的宗教概念,不是有关祭仪行为的,而是一个民族与其上帝之间就意义所作的口头商谈,就一个正在发生于他们眼下事件之意义的商讨。

In Isaiah 40,this sublime though ideologically flawed poem,there is a veritable medley of voices,not all of them ascribed to their speakers.In reading the poem,we have the impression of overhearing a conversation among people we do not know and cannot identify.That is the way the poet wanted it to be,and I am not sure I should be thwarting his desire by attempting to make clear what he has chosen to leave obscure,to identify where he has concealed.But that is the task I have taken up for this paper.Religion,for our poet, lives in the world of speech,not of ritual;it is constituted by the interchange of voices—dialogue,debate,command, reproach,rhetoric,question.The many voices it takes to create Isaiah 40 signify the poem's conception of religion—not as a matter of deeds,but—as a verbal negotiation between a people and their God about meaning,the meaning of what is happening before their eyes.