《致大法官》为雪莱所作的诗。1816年11月，雪莱的第一任妻子赫丽艾特自杀而死。同年12月雪莱和玛丽·葛德文结婚后，赫丽艾特之父就提起诉讼，要求剥夺他对亡妻所遗一子一女的教养权。1818年2月，案件以大法官艾尔登宣判雪莱败诉告终。理由是雪莱发表过不敬神的言论，有“罪恶”思想，不宜教养子女。这首诗是雪莱声讨英国反动统治阶级和罪恶的教会的一篇战斗檄文。
作者简介
诗歌全文
英文版本
TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR.
1.
Thy country’s curse is on thee, darkest crest
Of that foul, knotted, many-headed worm
Which rends our Mother’s bosom—Priestly Pest!
Masked Resurrection of a buried Form!
2.
Thy country’s curse is on thee! Justice sold,
Truth trampled, Nature’s landmarks overthrown,
And heaps of fraud-accumulated gold,
Plead, loud as thunder, at Destruction’s throne.
3.
And whilst that sure slow Angel which aye stands
Watching the beck of Mutability
Delays to execute her high commands,
And, though a nation weeps, spares thine and thee,
4.
Oh, let a father’s curse be on thy soul,
And let a daughter’s hope be on thy tomb;
Be both, on thy gray head, a leaden cowl
To weigh thee down to thine approaching doom.
5.
I curse thee by a parent’s outraged love,
By hopes long cherished and too lately lost,
By gentle feelings thou couldst never prove,
By griefs which thy stern nature never crossed;
6.
By those infantine smiles of happy light,
Which were a fire within a stranger’s hearth,
Quenched even when kindled, in untimely night
Hiding the promise of a lovely birth:
7.
By those unpractised accents of young speech,
Which he who is a father thought to frame
To gentlest lore, such as the wisest teach—
THOU strike the lyre of mind!—oh, grief and shame!
8.
By all the happy see in children’s growth—
That undeveloped flower of budding years—
Sweetness and sadness interwoven both,
Source of the sweetest hopes and saddest fears-
9.
By all the days, under an hireling’s care,
Of dull constraint and bitter heaviness,—
O wretched ye if ever any were,—
Sadder than orphans, yet not fatherless!
10.
By the false cant which on their innocent lips
Must hang like poison on an opening bloom,
By the dark creeds which cover with eclipse
Their pathway from the cradle to the tomb—
11.
By thy most impious Hell, and all its terror;
By all the grief, the madness, and the guilt
Of thine impostures, which must be their error—
That sand on which thy crumbling power is built—
12.
By thy complicity with lust and hate—
Thy thirst for tears—thy hunger after gold—
The ready frauds which ever on thee wait—
The servile arts in which thou hast grown old—
13.
By thy most killing sneer, and by thy smile—
By all the arts and snares of thy black den,
And—for thou canst outweep the crocodile—
By thy false tears—those millstones braining men—
14.
By all the hate which checks a father’s love—
By all the scorn which kills a father’s care—
By those most impious hands which dared remove
Nature’s high bounds—by thee—and by despair—
15.
Yes, the despair which bids a father groan,
And cry, ‘My children are no longer mine—
The blood within those veins may be mine own,
But—Tyrant—their polluted souls are thine;—
汉译版本
一
你的国家在诅咒你，貌似祭司的瘟疫，
撕裂我们母亲胸膛，纠结成团的
污秽的多头蠕虫的最最邪恶的顶羽——
埋葬已久的体制以假面伪装的复辟！
二
你的国家在诅咒你，被出卖的正义，
被践踏的真理，被推到的天然界碑，
被以欺诈手段聚敛的一堆堆金币，
都在毁灭的王廷高声控诉有如惊雷。
三
而一直在守候着无常的指示的天使，
无疑是行动迟缓的一位，并不顾及
一个民族的哭泣，却迁延执行她崇高的
旨意，且容你和你那一帮暂时喘息。
四
哦，让一个父亲的诅咒降祸给你的灵魂，
让一个女儿的希望寄托于你的坟茔，
让两者在你皤(pó)白的头顶化为铅的头巾，
压低你的头顶去承受迫近的覆灭命运！
五
凭着长久怀抱、最近才失却的希望，
凭着你永远也不可能体验的高尚柔情．
凭着你铁石心肠从未感受过的忧伤；
六
凭着闪耀着欢乐光辉的婴孩的微笑，
那曾是新生儿带给家庭的温暖火苗，
甚至在点燃的时刻就被扑灭而熄掉，
七
凭着那未经调教的口齿的幼稚的音节，
那在一个做父亲的看来，一定会发育
成为最富于智慧的最高尚学问的儿语——
你却摧残心灵之琴——伤心啊，可耻！
八
凭着幸福的人们在小儿女的成长过程，
那甜蜜和忧愁密切交织，最伤神的疑虑
和最美妙的希望共生并育的源泉——
九
凭着所有在雇佣仆役照管下度过的那些
充满烦闷、拘束和辛酸、抑郁的光阴；
这样可怜的孩子，除了你们，还能有谁？
哦，比孤儿更惨，而又不是没有父亲。
一○
凭着那些如同挂在绽开的花瓣上的毒药，
一定会挂在他们唇边的虚伪道学说教；
凭着以吞蚀日月的阴影笼罩他们从襁褓
直到坟墓全部人生道路的邪恶的信条；
一一
凭着你最猥亵的地狱和地狱所有的恐怖，
凭着你欺诈所造成的忧伤、疯狂和罪孽，
这些一定会成为他们未来生活中的错误—
你摇摇欲坠的权力借以建立的砂砾——
一二
凭着你同贪欲和憎恨之间的勾结，
你对眼泪的癖好，对黄金的饥渴，
随时供你施行现成的阴谋诡计，
和你已经运用自如的卑贱的技艺；
一三
凭你致人死命的冷嘲，也凭你的笑——
凭你黑色渊薮 的一切伎俩和圈套，
而且还由于你哭得比鳄鱼更加优美，
也凭你如同磨盘能砸碎人脑的假泪；
一四
凭着戕害一个父亲的爱的所有的憎恨，
凭着扼杀一个父亲的关怀的全部轻蔑，
凭着那只胆敢切断自然的崇高纽带的
邪恶之手，凭着你，也凭着心灰望绝…
一五
是的，正是绝望在使一个父亲呻吟不歇，
哭叫着“我的儿女已经不再是我的，
那脉管中流动着的可能还是我自己的血，
但是，暴君，被玷污的灵魂属于你。”