地球的私語---如泣如訴的樂章

The Climate Change Conference was held in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was a distress to see constant quarrels between countries, especially the developed & developing countries. The moral question is “Who Speaks for Earth?”

On August 20th and September 5th, 1977, two identical spacecraft Voyager I & Voyager II were launched to the space. Inside each spacecraft, there is a gold plated record containing the valuable information that someday some one in the outer space may find it meaningful. After exploring Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus & Neptune, Voyager I left the solar system & wandered into the remote universe. Just at the edge of the solar system, Voyager I took a last photo. In the photo, we find a Tiny Blue Dot. This is the Earth, our home. Voyager I will be near a star in the Ophiuchus constellation (蛇夫座) in about 40,000 years. It is very unlikely that it will ever be accidentally encountered. If they are ever found by an alien species, it will most likely be far in the future, and thus the gold record is best seen as a time capsule or a symbolic statement rather than a serious attempt to communicate with extraterrestrial life. In September 2003, I bought a book “Murmurs of Earth” from a book sale in Palo Alto library. It contains two CDs, the copy of the gold record sent to the outer space with the Voyagers. The second CD contains 27 pieces of music. Among them there are 3 by Bach, 2 by Beethoven & 1 by Mozart. The last piece of the music in the record is Cavatina, 5th movement of String Quartet No. 13, Opus 130, by Beethoven. This music is really deep in emotion, mostly sad & murmuring. It is like 默默許願, 細細傾訴, 切切私語, 如泣如訴. Ann Druyan who worked on the project had the following philosophical comment:

Sadness alone can’t define the Cavatina. Strains of hope run through it as well, and something of the serenity of a man who has endured suffering and come to terms with existence perceived without illusion. It may be that these ambiguities make for an appropriate conclusion to the Voyager record. We who are living the drama of human life on Earth do not know what measure of sadness or hope is appropriate to our existence. We don not know whether we are living a tragedy or a comedy or a great adventure.

It is most appropriate that this piece of music concludes the space journey with the meaning of the Golden Record: Murmurs of Earth. We may listen to the Cavatina in the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fosTnfoMj30

It was performed by the famous American String Quartet in Taipei, March 21 (Spring Equinox), 2008, at 台北國立藝術大学(Taipei National University of the Arts). Perhaps some of our classmates in Taipei attended this concert in 2008. The original copy in the golden record was performed by the Budapest String Quartet.

After listening to Cavatina three times, I found the following poem fits very closely to the mood:
低 眉 信 手 續 續 彈, 絃 絃 掩 抑 声 声 思, 小 絃 切 切 如 私 語, 說 盡 心 中 無 限 事.
When some species in the outer space find this record million years later, it will be 同 是 天 涯 淪 落 人, 相 逢 何 必 曾 相 識.

PS0: Both poems are from 琵琶行 by 白居易.

PS1: “Who Speaks for Earth” is the last episode of the Cosmos, A Personal Voyage by Carl Sagen (1980). It is timely to watch it again if we really concern the outcome of the Copenhagen Conference.
The DVD of Episode 13 of the Cosmos: "Who Speaks for Earth?" can be checked out from most of the local  libraries.

冬之旅 與 林登樹

Winterreise (Winter Journey, 冬之旅) is a set of famous poems written by Wilhelm Muller. Schubert composed a song cycle based on it. The most famous one is Lindenbaum, 菩提樹. It is very popular in Taiwan & Japan. Almost every school kid knows the tune. However, 怪事年年有. Lately someone found that Linden is not 菩提樹, it is 椴樹. There is a famous street Unter den Linden in Berlin, Germany. It is named after the linden trees lining the boulevard. In German folklore, the linden tree is the "tree lovers." Some famous buildings line along the street are Berlin State Opera, German Historical Museum, Humboldt University, Frederick the Great Statue. I heard that 龍應台女士 used to gather some leaves of Linden on this street (while she taught in Germany) and tried to verify whether it is really 菩提樹. She found that they are not the same trees. Their leaves look alike but not identical. Linden has 齒狀邊緣 but 菩提樹 has smooth edge. To people who sing 菩提樹 for so many years, it is like a terrible betrayal. To add to the confusion, Japanese also call it 菩提樹. Perhaps the person just translated this from the Japanese text or some one in China might just goof in translation. The error was made long time ago but should we stick to it? 椴樹 may be ideal for botany, but too bookish or serious for music and literature. I suggest we just change 菩提樹 to 林登樹 per criteria of 信,達,雅. After all, Schubert's Lindenbaum really has nothing to do with 菩提 or Buddhism. The following link shows the pictures of the leaves of 菩提樹 and 林登樹.

http://interp.sow.tw/b6_nature/botany/dicotyledoneae/bot_dicot_peepultree.htm

PS: 龍應台女士曾當過台北文化局局長. She was well known in 1980’s in Taiwan for her 野火集. We may not be familiar with her books since we were so busy in picking cups for our hot chocolate (per AJ’s pps) at that time. Her new book “大江大海, 1949” opens a pandora box & says “以失敗者的下一代為榮”. It sounds like an interesting & moving(emotional & touching) book especially for those whose parents moved to Taiwan from mainland after 1949. 龍女士 was raised & educated in Taiwan (苗栗與台南). Her 祖籍 is 湖南衡山 . She used to think she was 湖南人. Until one day she was in 衡山, nobody there thought she was 湖南人 since she knew so little about 衡山 & 湖南. Now she considers herself a 新台灣人.