引動黃光男掉淚的是生活的艱困、養家的辛酸。（請見上一篇！）Yvette 倒是想到另一首掉淚洋蔥詩來了。女詩人 Adrienne Rich 在〈剝洋蔥〉裡使用洋蔥的象徵幫她的的眼淚找藉口。一個終日關在廚房的媳婦，胸懷已然乾涸，少時的夢一天比一天遠去，不能浪跡天涯、連一個「失敗的機會」都沒有。於是，順著嗆鼻的洋蔥，……滴了一碗老淚。

Peeling Onions

By Adrienne Rich (1929-- )
Only to have a grief
equal to all these tears!

There’s not a sob in my chest.
Dry-hearted as Peer Gynt

I pare away, no hero,
merely a cook.

Crying was labor, once
when I’d good cause.
Walking, I felt my eyes like wounds
raw in my head,
so postal-clerks, I thought, must stare.
A dog’s look, a cat’s, burnt to my brain---
yet all that stayed
stuff in my lungs like smog.

These old tears in the chopping-bowl.


芮琪使用的對比象徵是易卜生的劇作《皮爾金》。

（先開背景音樂吧！）
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU0WNE14RAY&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWLLp7pMSN4&mode=related&search=
葛利格用易卜生《皮爾金》譜的《皮爾金組曲》相信大家都耳熟能詳。

易卜生《皮爾金》劇中男英雄皮爾金出門遊歷世界，尋找他生命的「核心」，浪跡天涯的結果回到長久等待的戀人身邊，死在她懷裡…英雄得到一個結論：「生命像洋蔥，一直剝、一直剝、剝到最後是四分五散的散片，沒有核心。」

Why, you old soothsayer-humbug!
no Kaiser are you; you are nought but an onion.
I’m going to peel you now, my good Peer!
You won’t escape either by begging or howling.
(Takes an onion and pulls off layer after layer.)
There lies the outermost layer, all torn;
that’s the shipwrecked man on the jolly-boat’s keel.
Here’s the passenger layer, scanty and thin;-
and yet in its taste there’s a tang of Peer Gynt.
Next underneath is the gold-digger ego;
the juice is all gone-if it ever had any.
This coarse-grained layer with the hardened skin
is the peltry-hunter by Hudson’s Bay.
The next one looks like a crown;-oh, thanks!
we’ll throw it away without more ado.
Here’s the archaeologist, short but sturdy;
and here is the Prophet, juicy and fresh.
He stinks, as the Scripture has it, of lies,
enough to bring the water to an honest man’s eyes.
This layer that rolls itself softly together
is the gentleman, living in ease and good cheer.
The next one seems sick. There are black streaks upon it;-
black symbolises both parsons and niggers.
(Pulls off several layers at once.)
What an enormous number of swathings!
Isn’t the kernel soon coming to light?
(Pulls the whole onion to pieces.)
I’m blest if it is! To the innermost centre,
it’s nothing but swathings-each smaller and smaller.-
Nature is witty!
(Throws the fragments away.)
The devil take brooding!
If one goes about thinking, one’s apt to stumble.
Well, I can at any rate laugh at that danger;
for here on all fours I am firmly planted.
(Scratches his head.)
A queer enough business, the whole concern!
Life, as they say, plays with cards up its sleeve;
but when one snatches at them, they’ve disappeared,
and one grips something else,-or else nothing at all.
(He has come near to the hut; he catches sight of it and starts.)
This hut? On the heath-! Ha!
(Rubs his eyes.)
It seems exactly
as though I had known this same building before.-
The reindeer-horns jutting above the gable!-
A mermaid, shaped like a fish from the navel!-
Lies! there’s no mermaid! But nails-and planks,-
bars too, to shut out hobgoblin thoughts!-
SOLVEIG
(singing in the hut).
Now all is ready for Whitsun Eve.
Dearest boy of mine, far away,
comest thou soon?
Is thy burden heavy,
take time, take time;-
I will await thee;
I promised of old.
PEER
(rises, quiet and deadly pale).
One that’s remembered,-and one that’s forgot.
One that has squandered,-and one that has saved.-
Oh, earnest!-and never can the game be played o’er!
Oh, dread!-here was my Kaiserdom!
(Hurries off along the wood path.)

Text from:
http://www.sitater.com/home/ibsen/peergynt/pg_5e_e.htm