1.秦始皇

没有史诗，没有浮夸的明喻：

没有介于儒家法则和道家虚无论的

教义。一个比另一个

好不了多少。宽容会激起

不时的内战，或者对韵律

形式的粗暴反抗。

书里或书外没有虚张声势，

没有对出丑的恐惧。

胆怯的遁世者与道士

下象棋，或与碰巧

来访的客人练书法：

皆在沉默中磨利刀刃。

这些人是顺从、闭塞、

温驯的臣民，是抵制外来影响的

狂热防御者，是赶牛牵羊的

窃贼。

我出生时，钟鼓楼上

鼓声回荡：夜里咚咚锤响的

暗沉节奏预示着可以使温泉水

泛滥决堤的邪恶

能量。为确保我早日掌握

大局，确立我在全世的地位，

在我登基那年，在我十三岁生辰

之际，王国的奴隶们就开始

建造我的坟墓。

我的棺椁停在铜基座上，

装有自动十字弓的大门

保护着我的棺椁。水银和珍珠

分别代表河流和日月。

为了象征天地，

他们放入大雁和野鸭，

松树及柏树。

拥有如此精美的艺术，

我几乎不需要余生了。

他们告诉我，最受我宠爱的奶娘，

贴身男仆和妃子日后将与我同葬，

活封在墓室的巷道里，

作为他们终生侍奉的奖赏。

2.长矛兵

八千真人大小的陶制士兵、

马匹、战车全都蓄势待发；

秦始皇的御前侍卫摆好姿势，

准备进军深入到渭河

峡谷的裂缝，沿着

地府的峭壁一路向下。

真人和真马都注视着前方，

一脸漠然，不管陶工赐予

自己的镜像怎样的命运。

我拨弄着自身盔甲上的饰钉，

戳着饰有凹纹的垫肩，

嘴里咕哝着渎神的诗句，将长矛

坚定地插入双脚前的地面，

摆出骁勇善战的军姿，

好让我年轻的君主放心。

他点了点头，在他不朽的

游乐场里许给我一个壁龛。

3.厨子

五十根甜菜，去皮，切碎

水

牦牛奶和/或酸模树酸奶

黑烙饼

温水

把甜菜根放入广口罐中。让甜菜

没入水中，加奶，再覆上烙饼，

封口，放在温暖的地方发酵。

要发酵三周的时间。盖紧后贮藏

在地下。将保存很久。

木制的长凳，粗糙的桌子，

在我们的泥砖食堂里被擦成灰色，

热煤槽沿着墙壁排列。

敞篷式的土炉烤着烙饼。

士兵们笔直地坐着，头上顶着束紧的发髻。

他们闻着洋葱的香气，耐心等待着。

煮着砖茶的大壶在火焰上跳动，

嘶嘶汩汨声里冒出细长的蒸汽云。

粮食酿成的白酒是为将军储备的：

步兵、弓箭手、御者应该保持清醒，

要稳稳地持剑、执弓和挽缰绳。

将军能追踪越过池塘水面的鸟影，

在云鹤起飞时，谋划翌日的战术：

宇宙秩序不需要什么食谱，

人人知道自己的位置与伙食。

我的帮手们在巨大的砧板上砍剁着：

洋葱、胡椒、甜菜、做烤串的羔羊肉。

节奏加快，人声高涨，

卷心菜堆得像劈开的绿头颅。

满脸煤烟的厨工们干得卖力又利索。

他们飞奔在烙饼炉前，

沿着炽烈的炉膛内侧

泼水，将他们灵敏的手

插入地狱之火，把一圈圈未发酵的

生面团轻拍在炉壁上。啪嗒，啪嗒。

长杆进进出出，

一堆圆盘升高又像树叶散开，

米饭在大锅里蒸腾，迸发出

哧哧呼呼的沉重声响。

军队整装待发。

从吹动树液涌流的东风，

到秋日送殡的西风，

他们吃饭，行军，行军，吃饭。

自我接任以来，已有十六个王国覆灭。

食物，像人类所有事物一样，一晃而过。

主子似乎很看重我准备的寒碜膳食。

他在饥饿的人群之上，轻吹口哨，

不再发表演说。

我屏住了呼吸。

4.蹄铁匠

四十个三足鼎，还有打铁的伙计们：

炙热和尘土意味着缩短的寿命。

这些人从一开始就知道不该指望什么，

面具和金属护手整齐地摆在膝盖上，

他们等待着我的指示，帝国的检阅。

阳光直击面甲的金属条，衬托出

裹着青布的大腿的修长。他们被告诫

要坐直，眼睛向前：不许显露出

自作聪明的做派。老强硬派很快就能嗅出

其间的阴谋，工作坊里的不满，

即便只在谈笑间。这位老练的首领喋喋不休，

话语长而乏味，僵化的老人，嘴巴

中风似的抽搐，像是对昔日

雄辩口才的嘲弄。更多的是官腔吏调。

我这个人意见不多话更少，

不用沾染雄辩——业务就是一切。

副手随我的节奏抽动风箱。

我们在每个底座前停下。检查尺寸：

步兵们的护胸甲，

长矛骑兵的盔甲需要更多结实的铆钉

来抵挡锋利的长矛。在风箱气流的

助力下，火焰腾得越高，喷得更猛。

惹恼你们神圣的主子不是什么好事，

我嘱咐伙计们不要说笑取乐......

这张脸对生命知之甚少，嘴唇

紧紧闭合，唇线直如刀刃，

在外张的护手袖口和罩衣的长袖间

露出一段前臂，如此年轻的男人身上，

有着意想不到的粗壮，在浅色的皮肤下

肌肉凸起弯绕：也许今晚该轮到他

去安抚皇帝的愤怒？

我教他们不懈地锤击，

青铜的铸造，钳子的握力，

如何拧弯和密封轮辋，

把饰钉修圆磨光，打磨好盾牌的带扣，

不能让任何长矛刺穿这些护胫甲。

我像以前别人教导的那样，教导他们服从，

在主子面前举起并放下各个部件。

像鹰隼般，他在空中扫视我闪亮的献礼，

像戴着托克帽般将傲慢戴在头顶。

没有人敢去直视，他眼里闪烁着

如此可怕的凶光。我当时定然令他满意......

粗野又狂烈，伙计们高声吼叫着，

配合风箱鼓动的节奏。

为吸引我的目光，他们转身挺立，

像新长出的稻谷绿尖儿，

从被淹没的稻田里探头窥视......主子

规行矩步，缓慢移动。

这次视察持续二十分钟。

琴弦拨动，重复的颤音

在他身后愈发狂烈昂。

长笛哀鸣，鼓声战栗，连喘气都迟疑。

仆从小碎步紧跟在他身后，金色的罗伞

连同明亮而坚定的目光，被高高地、

恭敬地举起。那没有生命的寄生虫！

他刻意装出的冷漠使伙计们

忐忑了多年。

我出示了新设计，一个战车轮轴；

重臣和小官已从眼前走过，

摩拳擦掌，为明日描金雪地里的鹰猎。

夕阳的光盘在我的眼睑后

爆炸，就在我照例深鞠一躬，

恭敬如随风招展的旗帜之时。

一群啾啾唧唧的麻雀

能否分享雄鹰的孤独之路？

5.弓箭手

他要我的手不握弓时

模拟拉弦时的紧绷。

太拘束了，我出神地坐在

无声的抗议中，违背

意愿地屈膝，并想起

我的岳父，有名的

陶艺家。他过着极其

清醒的生活。专业的唯美主义者，

圣人和感觉论者，但有着花岗石的

心。如此讲究，甚至连他的

恭桶都是精致的陶瓷瓮，

每天都要摆满新鲜的

绿色香柏叶。他的妻子也一样。

这对我们来说不是好兆头。

高超的手艺人，他教我们

认识身体曲线的用处，

绘制农场附近稻田的

等高线——这里有锯齿状的边缘，

那里有光洁的田埂，风扫过草地

形成的波浪和垄沟。

我学习手艺，随猎物穿过

熊、牡鹿和小鹿常出没的

森林，标示多岩石的路线，峡谷里

生长着矮小的松树，紧贴着

悬崖绝壁，它们的种子在云层

滑翔，从山顶上落下。

长途跋涉。没有房子。没有

牧羊人的小屋或洞穴。夜晚的凛冽；

仲夏的酷热带来雾和雨。

我的后背挺得笔直，

在主子不间断衡量的目光

逼迫下。我注视着前方

不远处，带着优雅的厌恶

朝着一个我不愿触及的点，

我不能错过的靶子。

秦始皇总能看穿我的掩饰：

“不要否认你的才能，

这是你欠我的。”

6.制陶工

我们一家早就沦为奴隶，

我的妻子过早离世，对于剩下的一切，

我没有太多激情，只盼着有法子找回人生，

这样，就能按我的条件将它交出来。

有个寒冬要面对；

柴堆已经在去年春末烧尽。

我要出去拾落穗，在朽坏的

灶台旁躲藏，看上去沉着，

迟钝，没有花哨的动作。记得保持镇定，

或者，正如我们常说的那样:

“胳膊折了往袖子里藏。”

我有何资格让我空洞的头颅

对抗专制主义的武器，让柔软的身体部件

随阴沟里的老鼠，堆积的头盖骨，

征战的暴行一同漂流？

陷于待完成和已完成的工作之间，

我讨厌自己无力拖拽、踉跄而行的气息；

危险的话语，比玩火还糟糕。

固守黏土，是一种更安全的沉默对抗的秘方。

统治者的腐朽策略，将人性的污点

印在景观上，除了农业手册，

烧毁所有书籍，把孔子的

语录扔到火葬的柴堆上，用无休止的战争

鼓动那些愚蠢的人心——

为我这鼠蚁的喘息，要付出什么代价？

我不是唯一被召唤去服役的人，

作为工匠，而非艺术家，经随机征募

登上他的死亡之船。我在铸造一匹马的

臀部时，秦始皇恰好出现，

历史的敌人被一位老人的残片捕获。

我以为——再次出错——观众们就会察觉到

我的站姿背后如涟漪般震颤的反讽，

就拒绝鞠躬。他大笑，以显示自己多么宽容，

他对人人忽略的事物的好奇心

多么难以餍足：真是平易近人......

我的愤怒引燃了炽灼的能量，

肌肉在铸模上隆起，足以

令他震惊。他的笑容，紧绷得像刀砍一样，

止住了我的笨嘴塑造的任何词语。

至少我知道，一件作品永远不该

极尽修饰的能事。你不能给

塞饱的东西充气。我开始绘制人像，

而不是摹仿我所看到的模样。

我作画是为了发现我所看到的模样：

有些东西撞上了却不得不接受。

“闻之易忘。见之易记。

行之易知。”这是很好的信条，

正如我们的先贤所知——他们受人尊敬，年老无牙，

被逐出当下。值得付出一切。

时光如流水，流走了我们的青春；

我蛾翼般的眉毛变白，像一只

凤凰被剥夺了自己的巢穴和孩子。

我的幼崽会为我的鬼魂扔米饭吗？

他们会为了缅怀我赛龙舟吗？

野鸭和大雁，还有仙鹤参差不齐的黑灯芯草，

夜晚的星星，猫嘴般的月亮。

记住食物：胡椒加蜂蜜，苦瓜汤，

羔羊肉，甲鱼，甘蔗汁，红蜡烛，

灯笼，盐津梅子，柠檬，醋，

姜和水，大米和大麦，咸蛋，豆子。

敲起战鼓，为亡者哭泣，

为罪行哭泣。我漂浮在树的上空，飞向

世界的屋顶，飞过我有角的房子，

驾着玉与象牙雕成的龙舟战车，

在雪松桨的驱使下，在兰花旗的环绕中，

一个冰冷的幻象，在愤怒中激起......

这些人不喜欢他们被刻画的样子，

抱怨我将他们的鼻子做得太大，

肩膀太窄，耳朵太垂。

这不是他们眼中自己的模样，

他们没有直面自己必死的命运。

你成心要毁了我们，以我们为代价

让你的人生步步高升，他们哭囔道。

我不需要这个任务，我说。我来这里，

是因为他喝醉了传唤我：我在沉醉中目睹

世界的奇迹，生命的无尽浪费，

帝国的谎言，无意义的序列。

别忘了他是你的背叛者，就像我是他的一样；

他也是你的复仇者。

最难的是向黏土确切传达

自己的所见，一旦杀戮停止，

还要忠实于自己的镜像。

他希望他的贝冢永久，直白地记录

曾被猎杀、屠宰和吃掉的种种。

他要把我们带往一个遥远的国度。

一旦大门放下，执行令盖章，

你脆弱的肉体将融合在墙壁的碎石中，

谁会在意谁的鼻子大，谁的肩膀窄?

这些天我宁愿靠睡觉打发高温，

巧妙地装出一点醉醺醺的谋逆迹象，

一脸无政府、无语的狡猾表情。

你没法显得太自高自大，

毕竟，你正碎裂在掺水的烈酒和骆驼粪里，

双手也已包上了可塑的黏土。

火炉里僵硬地立着我的动物群像，

我数着身上的骨头，算着自身的命数。

【英文原诗】

The Terracotta Army at Xi'an

I The Emperor Qinshihuang

No epics or grandiloquent similes:

nothing in between Confucian law

Tao nihilism. one no better

than the other. Tolerance provokes

occasional civil war, or rough

reactions against formal prosody.

No swashbuckling on or off the page

no fear of loss of face.

The timid recluse plays chess with

a Taoist priest or practises

Calligraphy with a casual caller:

both sharpen their blades in silence.

Such people are biddable, landlocked,

willing subjects, ardent defenders

against foreign influence, cattle

rustlers.

At my birth drums resounded

in the drum-tower: nights of thumping

dark rhythms prefigured sinister energy

causing hot springs to overflow

their banks. To ensure I got the picture

early, my place in the scheme of things,

the kingdom’s helots started construction

on my tomb the year I was enthroned:

my thirteenth birthday.

The door equipped with automatic crossbows

protected my coffin resting on a

copper base. Mercury and pearls represented

rivers, the sun and moon.

To symbolize heaven and earth

they added wild geese and ducks,

pines and cypresses.

With such fine art

I hardly needed what was left of a life.

They tell me my favourite nursemaid,

valet and concubine will be sealed alive

with me in the burial chamber's alleys,

their reward for a lifetime' s devotion.

2 The Spear Bearer

Eight thousand pottery soldiers, horses,

chariots, all life-size stand ready;

Qinshihuang's imperial bodyguard poised

to march deep down into the clefts

of the Wei River Valley, down

the underworld’s precipices.

Men and horses looking straight ahead

impassive for whatever fate the potter

has bequeathed their likeness to endure.

I'm fingering my armour’s studs,

poking the high-fluted shoulder pads,

mutter some profane verses as I plant

my spear firmly before my feet,

striking a competent soldierly pose

to reassure my young sovereign.

He bows and offers me a niche

in his playground of immortality.

3 The Cook

50 beets peeled, chopped

Water

Yak milk and/or sourweed yoghurt

Black bread

Lukewarm water

Place beets in wide-mouthed jar. Cover

with water, add milk, top with bread,

cover and keep in warm place till fermented.

Three weeks lo ferment. Strain and store

underground. Will keep.

Wooden benches, rough tables

scrubbed grey in our mud-brick mess,

troughs of hot coals line the walls.

Open-topped earthen ovens for the bread.

The men sit straight, top-knots tightly wound.

They inhale the onion fragrance, ever patient.

A huge kettle of brick-tea stirs over the flames

hissing and bubbling sends out a long steam cloud.

Grain spirits are stored for the generals: foot-

soldiers, archers, charioteers must stay sober,

steady hands for swords, crossbows, chariot reins.

Generals can track bird shadows over the pond,

plot tomorrow's strategies as the crane flies:

cosmic order needs no recipe,

each knows his place and fare.

My assistants chop away on a huge block:

onions, peppers, beets, lamb for the iron skewers.

The pace quickens, the voices rise.

Cabbages lie piled like split green skulls.

My soot-faced boys work hard and fast.

They dart before the bread-ovens,

splash water round the inside of the

fiery chamber, plunge their nimble hands

into the inferno, pat rounds of unleavened

dough against the oven walls. Flip, flap.

The long rods go in and out,

the pile of discs rises high and loose-leaved,

the rice steams in its vast pot heaving

with heavy puffs and spurts.

The armies wait.

Through sap-springing easterly winds,

funereal westerlies of autumn

they eat and march, march and eat.

Since I took over, sixteen kingdoms have fallen.

Food, like all human stuff, passes, is impermanent:

my master seems to value my modest fare.

He whistles softly above the hungry men,

refrains from speech.

I hold my breath.

4 The Farrier

Forty tripods and the beating boys:

scorching heat and dust mean shortened lives.

This lot know what not to expect from day one,

masks and gauntlets ranged neat on their knees,

primed for my instructions, imperial inspection.

Sunlight strikes the visors' metal bars, flashes

the length of blue-clad thighs. They’re warned

to sit upright, eyes ahead: no smartass tickets

on themselves. Old hardliners are quick to sniff

conspiracies, disaffection in the workshops,

even in jest. The veteran leader’s speech drones

tediously on, sclerotic elder, mouth

working away in a palsied tic, a mockery

of past eloquence. More bureaucratese.

A man of few opinions fewer words myself,

I'm safe from eloquence—practice is all.

My chief assistant pumps the bellows at my step.

We stop before each base, check measures：

breastplates for the foot soldiers，

corselets for lancers need more solid rivets

to repel sharpened spears. Flames leap higher

forced by the bellows’ currents; blow harder.

It doesn't do to rattle your divine masters.

I tell the boys to keep the banter down...

Here's a face knows little of life, the line

of his tight-shut lips as straight as a blade’s edge,

forearms visible between his gauntlet’s flaring cuff

and tunic sleeve, a thickness unexpected in

so young a man, tendons snaking high beneath the

lightish skin: his turn maybe tonight

to soothe the imperial choler?

I taught them tireless hammer blows,

the strike of bronze, the pincer grip,

how to curve and seal the rims,

round off the studs, perfect the shield-strap clasps,

No spear should ever penetrate these greaves.

I taught obedience as I was taught,

would lift and lay each piece before my master.

Hawk-like, he'd sweep my shining gifts aloft,

wearing his arrogance high as his pointed toque.

None had the nerve to look, so fierce the glitter

in his eye. I must have suited at the time...

Coarse and coltish, the boys roar out

to match the rhythm of the bellows’ pulse.

To catch my eye, they turn and rear

like green spears of new rice plants

peeking from the flooded paddies...the master

moves methodically slow.

The visit lasts twenty minutes.

Viol strings are plucked, repeated tremolo

rising to a wild intensity in his wake.

Flutes sigh, drums shudder, hesitate for breath.

His footman follows mincing, golden parasol

raised high, respectfully above with bright

fixed eyes. That lifeless parasite!

His studied disinterest has kept boys

dangling for years.

I signal my new design, a chariot axle;

courtiers and minor functionaries have already passed,

chafing for tomorrow's falconry in gold-limned snow.

The setting sun's bright disc explodes

behind my eyelids as I make my usual deep

reverential bow, a flag obedient to the wind.

Can flocks of chattering sparrows

share the eagle's solitary path?

5 The Archer

He wanted my hands without the bow

mimed tense from the stretch.

Uneasy, I sat abstracted

in mute protest, bent the knee

against my will remembering

my father-in-law famous

as a potter. He lived exquisitely

sober. A professional aesthete

saint and sensualist but granite-

hearted. So fastidious even his

toilet was a fine ceramic urn，

daily to be filled with fresh

green cedar leaves. His wife, of course.

It didn't augur well for us.

Consummate craftsman, he taught

the virtue of the body's curve，

the contoured lines of rice fields

near our farm, jagged edge here,

polished ridge there, the waves

and furrows of wind-swept grass.

I learned my craft with game crossing

the forest haunts of bear, stag, fallow

deer, mapped the rocky routes, ravines

with stunted pines clinging to sharp

precipices, their seeds wafting in

clouds from the mountains down.

Great distances. no houses, no

shepherd's hut or cave. Severe night cold；

midsummer heat brought mist and rain.

My back is ramrod-straight

under the master's relentless measure-

taking gaze. Staring into the middle distance

I look ahead with elegant distaste

towards a point I'd rather not reach,

the target I can't miss.

Qinshihuang always saw through my subterfuge：

‘Never deny your talent.

You owe it to me.’

6 The Potter

My family long gone into slavery,

my wife to early death, I wasn't too stirred up

for what was left, craved ways to take life back

so I could yield it up on my terms only.

There was a winter to be faced;

the woodpile burnt down late last spring.

I needed to go out and glean, hole up

by the mouldering hearth, look steady,

slow, no fancy moves. Remember to stay calm.

Or, as our saying goes,

‘Hide your broken arms in your sleeves.’

Who am I to pit the hollow of my skull

against tyrannic arsenals, soft body parts

afloat with sewer rats, heaped skulls,

atrocities of conquest?

Trapped between potential, finished work,

I hate my feeble shuffling lurches into breath;

words dangerous, worse than fire-play.

Stick to clay, a safer recipe for silent opposition.

This ruler’s outworn stratagems to put a human

stain upon a landscape, burn all books apart

from agricultural manuals, toss Confucian

analects on a pyre, pump the hearts of

simpletons with endless wars—

what price my mouse gasps?

I wasn't the only one called to serve,

more artisan than artist, random recruit

to his death-ship. Qinshihuang just happened by

as I was casting a horse's rump,

history's enemy arrested by an old man’s fragment.

I assumed—wrong again—my audience would detect

the rippling tremor of irony behind my stance,

refused to bow. He laughed to show how deep his tolerance,

how insatiable his curiosity for what is commonly

passed by: the common touch indeed...

My rage touched off a burning energy,

muscles bulging over the mould, enough to

make him start. His grin, tight as a knife-slash

stalled whatever word my slow lips formed.

At least I knew a work should never look

more finished than it is. You can't inflate

what's stodge. I started sketching men,

not to catch a likeness of what I saw.

I drew to find out what it was I saw:

something bumped against but settled for.

‘I hear and I forget. I see and I remember.

I do and I understand. ’As good a credo

as our sages knew: honoured, old and toothless,

banished from the present. Worth it all.

Time runs like water, drains our youth;

my moth-wing brows turn white, a phoenix

dispossessed who once had nest and children.

Will my young throw rice for my ghost?

Will they race dragon boats in my memory?

Wild ducks and geese, the jagged black rush of cranes,

the night stars, cat’s mouth moon.

Remember food: pepper with honey, bitter melon soup,

lamb, turtle, sugarcane juice, the red candles,

lanterns, salt plums, lemons, vinegar,

ginger and water, rice and barley, salted eggs, beans.

Beat the drums of war and cry for the dead,

the wrongdoing.I float above the trees to the

world's roof, over the horned houses in my

dragon boat chariot of jade and ivory,

driven by cedar oars and wreathed in orchid flags,

an ice-cold vision fuelled by rage...

The men don't like the way they look,

complain I've made their noses big,

shoulders narrow, ears a-flap.

Not how they saw themselves at all,

facing their mortality askew.

You’re out to do us in, to keep your life

on track at our expense, they whine.

I don't need this task, I say. I came

because he summoned me in drink: drunk I witnessed

the wonders of the world, the unending waste of life,

imperial mendacity, the senseless sequence.

Don’t forget he’s your betrayer just as I am his,

but your avenger too.

The hardest is to tell the clay exactly

what I’ve seen, stay honest to your likeness

once the killing stops.

He wants his middens lasting, the record straight,

what was once hunted, slaughtered, eaten.

He's taking us all to a far country.

Once the great door’s lowered, warrant sealed,

your tender flesh melded to the rubble of a wall,

who will care whose nose was big, whose shoulders narrow?

These days I'd rather sleep away the heat,

handy with a drunken hint of treason,

Sly anarchic speechless look.

You can't get far above yourself

crumbling in the grog and camel dung,

hands crusted with a workable paste.

Stiff in the furnace stands my menagerie.

I count my bones and my luck.

关于费伊·兹维基（Fay Zwicky） （译者）

费伊·兹维基 1933 年 7 月 4 日生于墨尔本，本名朱莉娅·费伊·罗斯菲尔德。她们家 属于第四代澳大利亚人，父亲是医生，母亲是音乐家。兹维基 6 岁时就成为了一位有造诣的钢琴家，经常作为独奏者进行演出，她还和姐妹们组成罗斯菲尔德三重奏乐队。她在墨尔本教会学校和墨尔本大学接受教育，1950 年，她开始写诗，并于 1954 年获得文学学士学位。从 1955 年开始，她以音乐会钢琴家的身份进行了10年的巡回演出，之后与她的荷兰丈夫和两个孩子定居在珀斯。1972年，她担任西澳大利亚大学的美国和比较文学讲师，任教直到 1987 年退休，退休后，她专注于写作。

兹威基的第一本诗集《伊萨克·巴别尔的小提琴》于 1975 年出版。此后，她又出版了 七本诗集。她的第二部诗集《卡迪什和其他诗歌》（1982 年）获得了当年新南威尔士州总理诗歌奖。其中的标题诗是对她去世的父亲的哀悼，也是对澳大利亚犹太家庭生活的清晰再现。她后来的两部作品《问我》（1990 年）和《守门人的妻子》（1997 年）均获得了西澳大利亚州总理诗歌奖。

《西安兵马俑》这首长诗来自费伊·兹维基 2006 年的诗集《野餐》，这本诗集主要收集了她有关诗歌本质和诗人在世界上的角色的诗，关注当代文化和政治问题，比如权力的滥用、难民和暴力问题，以及继续探索家庭和自传主题。费伊·兹维基以自传为基础的哲学沉思的剧目，通过与当代政治和文化的密切接触，得到了修改和扩充。无论是戏剧化的现代术语，还是通过对历史的平行关注，《野餐》中收集的这些诗歌都探究了权力的使用和滥用，最引人注目的是诗集中间的这首《西安兵马俑》，探讨了秦朝时现代专制主义古老的幌子。严肃、哀伤，偶尔讽刺，戏谑和挖苦，这些诗几乎没有什么幻想，写作，正如诗人注解的那样，“对抗即将到来的黑暗”。

兹维基反复出现的主题是艺术和艺术家之间的关系，对作者犹太传统的勘探以及自传经历。她的诗集获得了好几个著名的奖项。帕特里克·怀特奖评选委员会称赞兹维基是“澳大利亚最具独创性和最有成就的诗人之一”。

除了诗歌，兹维基还于 1983 年出版了短篇小故事集《人质》，并于 1986 年出版了关于文学与生存的随笔集《当铺里的里拉琴》。兹维基在她的随笔中追溯了澳大利亚文学的建构是如何使少数族裔作家和女性边缘化的。

2017 年 7 月 2 日，备受尊敬的费伊·兹维基周日在西澳大利亚州珀斯去世。

【译者简介】

颜久念，安徽安庆人。