[转帖] [Book] [2011.09.22] Horrid Henrys可怕的亨利们

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Tudor England英格兰都铎王朝

Horrid Henrys可怕的亨利们

The late Middle Ages in colour中世纪晚期的色彩


Sep 24th 2011 | from the print edition

Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England. By Thomas Penn. Allen Lane; 448 pages; £20. To be published in America by Simon & Schuster in March 2012. Buy from Amazon.co.uk

《晚年的国王：英格兰都铎王朝的黎明》；托马斯•佩恩；艾伦巷出版社；448页；20英镑。将于2012年3月在美国由西蒙与舒斯特出版社出版；请从Amazon.co.uk购买

MYSTERIOUS, suspicious, avaricious, cold, the figure of Henry VII has long been skipped over or ignored. From 1485 to 1509 he ruled England, a usurper-king steadily tightening his grip and casting his net for money, intent on establishing his Tudor dynasty firmly on the throne. From his portraits he stares out warily, his eyes hooded and his thin lips trying, but failing, to smile.

神秘、多疑、贪婪、冷酷，亨利七世这个人物长期不是跳过或就是被忽略。他从1485年到1509年统治着英格兰，这位篡位的国王牢牢抓紧权力，并网罗金钱，打算在他的宝座上建立坚固的都铎王朝。从他的画像看，他警惕地向外凝视着，眼睑被头巾遮住了，薄薄的嘴唇尝试着要微笑，但失败了。

Long before the Tudors became television celebrities, historians sought gleams of sunshine in his reign by tracing the emergence of his second son, the future Henry VIII; and so it is again here. Thomas Penn covers the first 16 years of Henry’s rule at a swift, perfunctory clip, deepening and slowing only in 1501—when, at the doomed wedding of Catherine of Aragon to Prince Arthur, a certain irrepressible “carrot-haired” lad, foreshadowing the modern Harry, appears in public to escort her. From then on the reader, too, is alert for him, doffing his robe to dance, dominating the tiltyard, until in 1509 he throws the windows open and sweeps his father’s miserly dreariness away.

早在都铎王朝的王室成员成为电视名人之前，历史学家就通过追踪他第二个儿子、未来的亨利八世的崭露头角，寻求亨利七世统治下微弱闪烁的阳光；所以在本书中亨利八世再次崭露头角。托马斯•佩恩敷衍地匆匆带过亨利七世统治下的前十六年，出人意料地对1501年那一年做了详尽深入的描述，当时在阿拉贡的凯瑟琳嫁给亚瑟王子的一场上天注定的婚礼上，一位少年出现在公众面前护送着她，这位少年一头桀骜不驯的“红发”，预示着现代的哈里王子。读者也是从那时候起对这位少年心生警觉，他不穿长袍跳舞，在骑士比武场上称霸，直到1509年他洞开所有的窗户，一扫他父亲的丝丝凄凉。

This imbalance is a shame. It consigns Henry VII to the Scroogeish, lonely twilight of his last years; but if anyone could have brought him out of the shadows, Mr Penn could. He is a superb teller of a tale, a reveller in dodgy deeds, a keen observer of the febrile, dissimulating characters of court and embassy, and a splendid limner of the great jousts and entertainments of the age. It is not hard, perhaps, to make the late Middle Ages colourful. But Mr Penn, with a sharp eye for detail and adroit use of a gifted historical imagination, lets readers relive them. He is especially good at noting the weather, the press and noise of crowds, the claustrophobic closeness of over-upholstered rooms and the foul state of the roads. He lets us hear the creak of oars and the scratch of pens, as well as the tubercular king fighting for every breath.

这种不平衡是一种耻辱。它让亨利七世变成了斯克罗吉式的人物，寂寞地度过了他生命的最后几年；而如果有什么人能够把他带离阴魂，那么这个人就是佩恩。他是个一流的故事讲解员；是个放纵于危险事迹的人，是个敏锐的观察者，观察宫廷和使馆各色头脑发热、虚伪的人物；是个了不起的画匠，画下那个时代的竞技和娱乐。或许，让中世纪后期色彩纷呈并不难。而佩恩靠着一双洞烛细微的锐眼，靠着娴熟地应用天生的历史想象力，让读者重温了中世纪后期的诸多色彩。他特别擅长记下天气、人群的拥挤和嘈杂、过度装饰的房间幽闭恐怖症的迫近以及道路的脏污状况。他让我们听到了船桨的咯吱作响，听到了钢笔的刮擦声，以及听到了患结核病的国王每一次奋力的呼吸。

He also draws a compelling picture of ever-increasing fear. As the king’s cupidity and nervousness increased in his last years, he found new ways to squeeze money from his subjects: to keep them, in Henry’s own words, “in danger at his pleasure”. They were made to sign bonds for their loyalty, fined for trumped-up infractions, or hauled before his “council learned” for no reason, except to pay money to be freed again. Low-born king’s intimates, Reynold Bray, Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley, devoted themselves to extortion, while the king’s spies and “promoters” roamed and listened everywhere. This was, in effect, a reign of terror. As Henry lay dying, leaving a vast treasure (much of it, interestingly, from trading alum, essential for dyeing cloth), he said he was sorry for what his officers had done. But only partly sorry.

他也描绘了一幅恐惧日胜一日的画卷，令人注目。亨利七世在晚年贪婪和焦躁更甚，他找到了新办法来榨取臣民的钱财，用亨利自己的话来说，就是让他们“在他高兴时陷入危险之中”。他们被迫签署自己忠诚度的债券，为莫须有的违规被罚款，在他的“议会获悉”之前毫无理由地被拘禁，要想重获自由除非付钱。国王出身低微的密友雷诺•布雷、理查德•爱普生和埃德蒙•达德利都极力进行敲诈勒索，而国王的间谍和“推动者”到处刺探和窃听。这实际上是恐怖统治。当亨利弥留之际，留下了一个巨大的宝藏（有趣的是大部分来自明矾的贸易，明矾对印染布很重要），他说他为他的官员所做过的事感到抱歉。但也只是感到部分抱歉。

Mr Penn is much better at narrative than analysis. This is not a book for new insights into the rebellions of Henry’s early years, or the tortuous diplomacy of the Spanish marriage, or the contents of the king’s private account-books. From those carefully monogrammed pages in the 1490s another man emerges: a music-lover, a delighted (though short-sighted) ogler of dancing maidens, an inveterate loser of tennis balls, and an amorous husband whose marriage to Elizabeth of York, cut short by her death in 1503, is depicted by Mr Penn mostly in sketchy flashbacks. The gap between father and son, darkness and light, winter and spring, did not always yawn so wide. If Mr Penn had properly charted the whole course of Henry VII’s struggle to assert himself, this vigorous and thoroughly enjoyable book would have been even better.

佩恩的叙事比分析更精彩。这本书的写作不是为了重新认识亨利早年的反叛，或是重新认识曲折外交的西班牙婚姻、或是重新认识国王私人帐簿的内容。从那些精心排印的叙述15世纪90年代的书页里，另一种风情的男子出现了，他是一个音乐爱好者，是一个尽管近视却愉快地对着跳舞的姑娘抛媚眼的人，是一个网球根深蒂固的失败者，也是一个多情的丈夫。他娶了约克郡的伊丽莎白，1503年伊丽莎白的去世结束了这段短暂的婚姻。对此种种风情佩恩大多用倒叙手法进行了粗略的描写。父亲与儿子、黑暗与光明、老年与少年之间的差距，并非总是宽如沟壑。如果佩恩适当地记录亨利七世努力维护自己的整个过程，那么这本朝气蓬勃且让人愉悦十足的书还会写得更好。

from the print edition | Books and arts