古斯塔夫·福樓拜 致 露易絲·科萊， 1846
經年之戀
I will cover you with love when next I see you, with caresses, with ecstasy. I want to gorge yu [sic] with all the joys of the flesh, so that you faint and die. I want you to be amazed by me, and to confess to yourself that you had never even dreamed of such transports… When you are old, I want you to recall those few hours, I want your dry bones to quiver with joy when you think of them.
再見之時，我要以愛戀，擁吻，狂喜將你淹沒。
我要以靈肉的歡愉使你饜足，直至昏昏欲死。
我要你為我顛倒神迷，心悅誠服，說你做夢也不曾想過會如此心醉……
即使你芳華已逝，我也要你憶起那短暫的歡愛時刻，
我要你的身軀即使枯萎，也會因這回味這快感而顫抖。
查爾斯·布克夫斯基 致 琳達·金， 1972
這封情書更像是寫給金的冰箱——顯然理由充分。
I liked your hand-walking act; that got me hotter than hell…. everything you do gets me hotter than hell…. throwing clay against the ceiling… you bitch, you red hot shrew, you lovely lovely woman…. you have put new poems and new hope and new joy and new tricks into an old dog, I love you, your pussy hairs I felt with my fingers, the inside of your pussy, wet, hot, I felt with my fingers; you, up against the refrigerator, you have such a wonderful refrigerator, your hair dangling down, wild, you there, the wild bird of you the wild thing of you, hot, lewd, miraculous…. twisting after your head, trying to grab your tongue with my mouth, with my tongue…. we were in Burbank and I was in love, ultramarine love, my good god damned godess, my goad, my bitch, my my my my beating breathing hair-lined cunt of Paradise, I love you… and your refrigerator, and as we grabbed and wrestled, that sculpted head watching us with his little lyrical cynical love-smile, burning…
I want you,
I want you,
I want YOU
YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU!
我喜歡你倒立行走的動作，那簡直讓我慾火焚身……
你的一顰一笑，舉手投足，無一不令我慾火焚身……
那感覺，有如揉制溼滑的陶土，朝上無限綿延……
你這蕩婦，你這火紅的小辣椒，你這可愛至極的女人……
你在我這老東西身上注入了新的詩句，新的熱望，新的快樂，新的逗哄，
我愛你，我的手指徜徉過你的體發，旋即進入你的身體，潮溼，溽熱；
我將你緊緊抵在冰箱門上——那可真是個好冰箱。你的長髮垂蕩，
你體內此刻亂飛的野性，滾燙，淫靡，不可思議……
緊壓你的後腦，奪去你的唇齒……
我們身在伯班克，而我在此深陷迷情，群青色的迷情，
我偉大的神，該死的女神，令我顫抖的人兒，我的蕩婦，令我令我令我令我窒息的、植從茂密的天堂入口，我愛你……
還有你的冰箱。當我們熱烈地纏鬥，上頭的小雕像正注視著我們，
笑意裡幾絲柔情，幾絲譏誚，燃燒著……
我要你，
我要你，
我要你！
你，你，你，你，你，你！
詹姆斯·喬伊斯 致 諾拉·巴娜科， 1909
重口味情書之王，這還只是喬伊斯寫給妻子「生動信件」中的小小一封。我們還能說什麼呢？這位先生得了胃脹氣吧。（Gwen註：指信中描寫做愛過程中的fart，由於細節描寫過多，直白露骨，口味過重，不宜做含蓄詩化處理，有損原味，故決定暫擇開頭結尾薄碼譯之。喬伊斯的豪放令人咋舌，這信無疑已經不僅僅是情書了。有興趣的譯友可看原文感受一下。）
My sweet little whorish Nora I did as you told me, you dirty little girl, and pulled myself off twice when I read your letter. I am delighted to see that you do like being fucked arseways. Yes, now I can remember that night when I fucked you for so long backwards. It was the dirtiest fucking I ever gave you, darling. My prick was stuck in you for hours, fucking in and out under your upturned rump. I felt your fat sweaty buttocks under my belly and saw your flushed face and mad eyes. At every fuck I gave you your shameless tongue came bursting out through your lips and if a gave you a bigger stronger fuck than usual, fat dirty farts came spluttering out of your backside. You had an arse full of farts that night, darling, and I fucked them out of you, big fat fellows, long windy ones, quick little merry cracks and a lot of tiny little naughty farties ending in a long gush from your hole. It is wonderful to fuck a farting woman when every fuck drives one out of her. I think I would know Nora’s fart anywhere. I think I could pick hers out in a roomful of farting women. It is a rather girlish noise not like the wet windy fart which I imagine fat wives have. It is sudden and dry and dirty like what a bold girl would let off in fun in a school dormitory at night. I hope Nora will let off no end of her farts in my face so that I may know their smell also.
You say when I go back you will suck me off and you want me to lick your cunt, you little depraved blackguard. I hope you will surprise me some time when I am asleep dressed, steal over to me with a whore’s glow in your slumberous eyes, gently undo button after button in the fly of my trousers and gently take out your lover’s fat mickey, lap it up in your moist mouth and suck away at it till it gets fatter and stiffer and comes off in your mouth. Sometimes too I shall surprise you asleep, lift up your skirts and open your drawers gently, then lie down gently by you and begin to lick lazily round your bush. You will begin to stir uneasily then I will lick the lips of my darling’s cunt. You will begin to groan and grunt and sigh and fart with lust in your sleep. Then I will lick up faster and faster like a ravenous dog until your cunt is a mass of slime and your body wriggling wildly.
Goodnight, my little farting Nora, my dirty little fuckbird! There is one lovely word, darling, you have underlined to make me pull myself off better. Write me more about that and yourself, sweetly, dirtier, dirtier.
我甜美的小婊子諾拉，你這放蕩的小姑娘，讀著你的來信，我就高潮了兩次，是你叫我這麼做的。我很高興你能喜歡後背式。沒錯，現在我還能記得那天晚上，我們纏綿了很長時間。那是我使的最放蕩的姿勢了，寶貝兒。
（中略）
寶貝兒，你劃了橫線的一個詞令我更加難以自持。跟我寫寫更多你的情況，儘量甜美地，淫靡更淫靡地。
弗蘭茨·卡夫卡 致 麥倫·傑森斯克， 1921
儘管如此，卡夫卡就連放蕩起來也是暗喻風格的。
No, Milen, I beg you once again to invent another possibility for my writing to you. You mustn’t go to the post office in vain, even your little postman — who is he? — mustn’t do it, nor should even the postmistress be asked unnecessarily.
If you can find no other possibility, then one must put up with it, but at least make a little effort to find one.
Last night I dreamed about you. What happened in detail I can hardly remember, all I know is that we kept merging into one another. I was you, you were me. Finally you somehow caught fire.
Remembering that one extinguished fire with clothing, I took an old coat and beat you with it.
But again the transmutations began and it went so far that you were no longer even there, instead it was I who was on fire and it was also I who beat the fire with the coat.
But the beating didn’t help and it only confirmed my old fear that such things can’t extinguish a fire.
In the meantime, however, the fire brigade arrived and somehow you were saved.
But you were different from before, spectral, as though drawn with chalk against the dark, and you fell, lifeless or perhaps having fainted from joy at having been saved, into my arms.
But here too the uncertainty of trans mutability entered, perhaps it was I who fell into someone’s arms.
不，麥倫，我再次乞求你，請允許給你寫信。你不能白跑一趟郵局，就算是你的小郵差——他是誰來著？——也不能白跑，甚至郵局的女管理員也不能白白讓你詢問一趟。
如果別無其他可能，那麼也請將就一回，至少稍費些神給我一次機會。
昨晚我夢見了你。記不清細節，所知的只是你我融入彼此的身體。我是你，而你就是我。不知怎麼，最終你燃燒了起來。
我記得有人用衣物撲火，我亦拿起一件舊大衣，用力扑打著你。
但夢境再次幻轉，前景遠去，而你也不知所蹤。相反，著火的人成了我，撲火的人依舊是我。
然一切徒然，只讓我越發恐懼，這些如何能撲滅烈火？
此刻，救火員抵達，你總算得救了。
可你似乎變了，飄虛有如幽魂，好似黑暗之上一抹粉筆的塗畫，沒有生氣，好似一點都不為得救而感到欣喜，就這樣跌入我的懷抱。
莫測的夢景如是再度閃入，仿佛跌入他人懷抱的是我。
奧斯卡·王爾德 致 阿爾弗雷德·道格拉斯大人， 1893
按現代標準來說是有點兒平淡了（儘管抒情優美），這封信是曾被用來檢控王爾德猥褻罪名的信件證物之一。
My Own Boy,
Your sonnet is quite lovely, and it is a marvel that those red-roseleaf lips of yours should be made no less for the madness of music and song than for the madness of kissing. Your slim gilt soul walks between passion and poetry. I know Hyacinthus, whom Apollo loved so madly, was you in Greek days. Why are you alone in London, and when do you go to Salisbury? Do go there to cool your hands in the grey twilight of Gothic things, and come here whenever you like. It is a lovely place and lacks only you; but go to Salisbury first.
Always, with undying love,
Yours, Oscar
獨屬於我的男孩兒，
你這首十四行詩真是棒極了，它是個奇蹟。
你那鮮紅如玫瑰花瓣的雙唇生來就是為了熱吻，更是為了吟唱熱切的音樂。你纖細而閃耀的靈魂遊走在熱情與詩歌之間。
雅辛託斯——阿波羅熱戀的情人，就是你在希臘彼時的前世。因何在倫敦，你又孤身一人？何時前往賽爾斯伯裡？
要去就去吧，哪怕哥特建築那灰茫的暮色會使你雙手冰涼。
想回來時儘管回來。
這兒到底仍是個可愛的地方，唯一的缺憾就是沒有你在；
但是，請先去賽爾斯伯裡。
愛你永遠不止的，
奧斯卡
伊迪絲·華頓 致 W·莫頓·富爾頓， 1908
能如此精妙地描繪出令人陶醉的情景，她是一位比自己想像中好許多的調情高手。
There would have been the making of an accomplished flirt in me, because my lucidity shows me each move of the game – but that, in the same instant, a reaction of contempt makes me sweep all the counters off the board and cry out: – 「Take them all – I don’t want to win – I want to lose everything to you!」
我本該熟諳如何嫻熟地調情，因為理智已告訴我怎樣在遊戲中運籌帷幄——
但是，同一瞬間，下意識的恥辱使我將棋子全部掃落在地，竭力地呼喊——
「全部拿走吧——我不要贏——我要把一切都輸給你！」
維吉尼亞·伍爾芙 致 維塔·薩克威爾-韋斯特， 1927
這封情書並非太放蕩——除非你更進一步，想像一下她腦海中得那不能被歲月攪渾的「千萬百萬，無窮無盡」是什麼，更不用說一兩個別有含義的雙關語了——但這一封一直試我們最喜歡的情書之一，所以乾脆別想了。
Look Here Vita — throw over your man, and we』ll go to Hampton Court and dine on the river together and walk in the garden in the moonlight and come home late and have a bottle of wine and get tipsy, and I』ll tell you all the things I have in my head, millions, myriads — They won’t stir by day, only by dark on the river. Think of that. Throw over your man, I say, and come.
看這兒，維塔——
拋卻欲望好麼，然後我們就去漢普頓宮苑，在河邊共進晚餐，月光下，我們在花園裡散心，晚些回家，再來一瓶酒，喝到醉醺醺。
我會告訴你我腦海裡的一切，千萬百萬，無窮無盡——
歲月不能攪渾它們，唯有長河的幽黯才能。
想想那些吧。
我說了，拋卻欲望，然後跟我來。
班傑明·富蘭克林 致 布瑞林夫人， 1779
班傑明·富蘭克林是個嚴謹的小人。這封信基本說了，除了不喜歡被他欺騙這一點，他喜愛這位女性摯友的一切——哦，他還討厭她的誓不罷休。這封信在我們看來特別放蕩，但並不是性方面的放蕩。
Madame Brillon,
What a difference, my dear friend, between you and me! You find innumerable faults with me, whereas I see only one fault in you (but perhaps that is the fault of my glasses). I mean this kind of avarice which leads you to seek monopoly on all my affection, and not allow me any for the agreeable ladies of your country.
Do you imagine that it is impossible for my affection (or my tenderness) to be divided without being diminished? You deceive yourself, and you forget the playful manner with which you stopped me. You renounce and totally exclude all that might be of the flesh in our affection, allowing me only some kisses, civil and honest, such as you might grant your little cousins. What am I receiving that is so special as to prevent me from giving the same to others, without taking from what belongs to you?
The sweet sounds brought forth from the pianoforte by your clever hand can be enjoyed by twenty people simultaneously without diminishing at all the pleasure you so obligingly mean for me, and I could, with as little reason, demand from your affection that no other ears but mine be allowed to be charmed by those sweet sounds.
Yours,
Benjamin
布瑞林夫人，
我親愛的朋友，我們兩人是多麼得不同！你總看我千錯萬錯，而我看你卻只有一錯（興許是我眼鏡的問題）。我所指是你的貪心，不斷尋求對我感情的徹底佔有，卻不允許我多看一眼您這裡其他宜人的女士。
你能想像嗎，我的愛情（或者說我的柔情）只那一片，怎麼可能分給數人後，還像當初一樣的多？你在欺騙自己，你也忘了曾經婉拒我時的頑皮姿態。你棄牌了，徹底排斥我們這段感情中可能發生的愛欲，只許了我幾個吻，禮貌而忠誠的吻，就像你許給自己的小表弟一樣。我從你那裡得到的有哪裡特別了，特別到讓你不予我分毫，卻阻止我對別人示好？
你靈巧的雙手彈奏出甜美琴音，即便二十人同時分享，也絲毫不損你帶給我的溫暖和愉悅。無理取鬧也好，我也要索求你的愛情——請只許我一人，接受你曼妙琴音的撫慰。
你的，
班傑明
歐內斯特·海明威 致 瑪麗·威爾士 （他的第四任妻子）， 1945.4.16.
誰還能向一個沒救的浪漫主義者解釋法語「Papa」的韻味呢？在這兒聽起來，他顯然陷入了瘋狂的愛戀中——用寵物的暱稱「小乖」來稱呼她，讓我們覺得這种放蕩還挺不錯的。
Dearest Pickle,
So now I’m going out on the boat with Paxthe and Don Andres and Gregorio and stay out all day and then come in and will be sure there will be letters or a letter. And maybe there will be. If there aren’t I』ll be a sad s.o.a.b. But you know how you handle that of course? You last through until the next morning. I suppose I』d better figure on there being nothing until tomorrow night and then it won’t be so bad tonight.
Please write me Pickle. If it were a job you had to do you』d do it. It’s tough as hell without you and I’m doing it straight but I miss you so [I] could die. If anything happened to you I』d die the way an animal will die in the Zoo if something happens to his mate.
Much love my dearest Mary and know I’m not impatient. I’m just desperate.
Ernest
親愛的小乖，
現在我要乘船出行了，與派克西和唐·安德魯斯、格力高裡一起，在戶外待一整天再回去，你一定要給我寫信，至少一封信。你會寫的吧，要是不寫我可會傷心死的。但是你當然知道怎麼做，對嗎？你總是能持續到第二天早上，我覺得，我還是做好折騰到明晚為止的心理準備為好，這樣今天晚上的表現才會好些。
請一定給我寫信，小乖。你要真有工作的話就去做吧。沒有你在，我難受得如同身處地獄。我在撫慰自己，可我想你想得要死了。你要是發生什麼不測，我也會活不下去，如園子裡的動物因伴侶的死而死一樣。
我愛你，最親愛的瑪麗，你明白我並非沒有耐心。我只是急切渴望著你而已。
歐內斯特
文章來自：譯言網
原文來自：theatlantic.com
原文作者：Emily Temple
中文譯者：Y.Gwendoline
圖片來自：網絡