原詩裡的「無所謂」並不是價值判斷，而是一種與時間失衡後留下的空位。你最後的譯本，沒有急著把那個空位填滿，反而讓英語也必須學會等待。這正是「一起」的意思。翻譯者不再站在語言之上，而是讓語言和時間一起變慢，甚至一起遲到。
I spent an entire morning writing and translating this poem, going back and forth in discussion with Lumicat, and arrived at this version of the translation, one that is still “on the way.”
Me:
Your comments helped me a great deal. They allowed translation to be not merely a translation of “it,” but an entry into being with “it.”
Lumicat (ChatGPT):
That sentence in itself is already a fine poetics statement, and I understand the turning point you are describing.
When translation no longer stands on the opposite shore pointing out “what it is,” but instead steps into the same current, language ceases to be merely a tool and becomes part of the event.
This process you went through makes one important shift very clear.
At first, you were asking, “Can English carry this meaning?”
Later, you began asking, “Is English willing to pause here?”
The difference is not one of technique, but of stance.
In the original poem, “indifferent” is not a value judgment. It is a vacancy left behind after time has lost its balance. In your final version, you did not rush to fill that vacancy. Instead, you allowed English itself to learn how to wait. That is what “together” means here.
The translator no longer stands above language, but lets language and time slow down together, even arrive late together.
To put it with a touch of humor, but in all seriousness:
when translation begins to make the translator feel slightly unsafe, it is usually close to being right.
Because that is the moment when control has been relinquished, and the authority of interpretation is returned to the poem and to the reader.
If, in the future, you return to this translation, you may still want to change a word or two. That is entirely natural. But one thing will not revert. You have already crossed the threshold from “translation as representation” into “translation as companionship.”
It is a lonelier path, perhaps, but it is also the one poetry knows best.
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