Yu Guangzhong's " Magic Mirror" 余光中的『魔鏡』

Read another poem from Yu Guangzhong's collection of poems called Spirit of the Lotus Root (藕神) (2008). This is a typical expression of that principle of writing by showing and not telling. In the first two stanzas, the poet merely tells us that what he is writing about is the "twilight of the setting sun and the reflection of dreams". It is something hung higher than the highest tips of towers and roofs, higher than all the tall windows and the distant sorrows hanging thereon, using there metonymy, or the part of the relevant object or matter for the whole: here the sorrows of those lovers longing for their beloved, their bodies bent over the window sills looking up at the moon missing those whose images occupy the entirety of their minds and hearts and regretting their absence. 

To the poet the subject of the poem is like a tender mother who would stoop down tenderly to console and to give hope to everyone including the lowest, although it is higher than all the buildings of the world. Nontheless, it is the place where lovers seek to find the face of their own lovers. But to the poet, it is nothing but a freckled face mirror. There is nothing on it. Yet people have created cultural festival around such illusions. Where is the link? Is it its soft light or in the words of the poet, its light gold or magical silver? Is it the hope of tenderness? Is it relief from the uncertainties and hence risks of love? 

Yet the subject of the poem is not revealed until the very end, when he lifts the veil of mystery surrounding all the previous descriptions, when he was writing around it, when he was using circumslocution: it is the moon that he is writing about. The magic mirror is the moon! It is magical because of all the dreams of lovers epitomized by the use of two Chinese festivals: mid-autumn and the evening of the 15th day of the first month of the lunar calender, a Chinese Valentine's Day. Perhaps the is the waning and waxing of the moon which prompted such magical projection. Like love, like the emotions, the moon gradually increase in size and brightness and as regularly decrease and fades. Its magic is the magic of love and the imagination fired by such love.

 

魔鏡                                                          Magic Mirror

落日的迴光，夢的倒影                Twilight of the setting sun, reflection of dreams

掛得最高的一面魔鏡                     The highest mirror ever hung

高過全世界的塔尖和屋頂              Higher than the tips of all towers and roofs

高過所有的高窗和窗口的遠愁      Higher than all the tall windows and the far away sorrows upon the windows

而淡金或是幻銀的流光                  Yet the fleeting light of light gold or magical silver 

卻温柔地俯下身來                           Bows tenderly

安慰一切的仰望                               To comfort every hope

就連最低處的臉龐                           Including those faces at the lowest places

 

高不可觸，那一面魔鏡                 Unreachably high, that magic mirror 

掛在最近神活的絕頂                     Hung closest to the highest peaks where the gods live

害得所有的情人                             Forcing all lovers                       

都舉起寂寞的眼睛                         To lift their lonely eyes

向著同一個空空的鏡面                 Towards that same empty empty mirror

尋覓各自渴望的容顏                     Seeking the face each longs for

不管是一夜或是一千年                  Be it from a single night or a thousand years

空鏡面上什麽都不見                      Nothing is seen upon that empty mirror

 

除了隱約的雀斑點點                      Aside half hidden spots of freckles

和清輝轉動淡金或幻銀                  And clear light wheeling light gold or magical silver

卻阻擋不了可憐的情人                  Nothing stops the poor lovers                  

依然痴痴向魔鏡                              from dotingly searching still in that magic mirror

尋找假面具後的容顏                     for the faces behind the masks

從中秋找到元夜，就像今宵         Searching from Mid Autumn to Mid First Moon Eve, like tonight

對似真似幻的月色                         Arduously searching from this half real half magical moonlight

苦尋你鏡中的絕色                         For that absolute beauty in your mirror.

3.3. 1999