Musée des Beaux Arts
by W. H. Auden
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
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关于苦难他们总是很清楚的，
这些古典画家：他们多么深知它在
人心中的地位，甚至痛苦会产生，
当别人在吃，在开窗，或正作着无聊的散步的时候 ；
甚至当老年人热烈地、虔敬地等候
神异的降生时，总会有些孩子
并不特别想要他出现，而却在
树林边沿的池塘上溜着冰。
他们从不忘记：
即使悲惨的殉道也终归会完结
在一个角落，乱糟糟的地方，
在那里狗继续过着狗的生涯，而迫害者的马
把无知的臀部在树上摩擦。
在勃鲁盖尔的《伊卡鲁斯》里，比如说；
一切是多么安闲地从那桩灾难转过脸：
农夫或许听到了堕水的声音和那绝望的呼喊，
但对于他，那不是了不得的失败；
太阳依旧照着白腿落进绿波里；
那华贵而精巧的船必曾看见
一件怪事，从天上掉下一个男孩，
但它有某地要去，仍静静的航行。
写作背景：
代达罗斯(Daedalus)是雅典城的著名工匠，他被米诺王二世召去岛上修建一座迷宫，用来困住米诺牛(这又是一则神话了，按住不表)，迷宫建好之后，米诺王唯恐代达罗斯将迷宫的秘密透露出去，将他关了起来，只有幼子伊卡鲁斯(Icarus)和他为伴。
代达罗斯决定设法让爱子逃出去。他看到天上的飞鸟，灵机一动，为伊卡鲁斯用蜡制作了一双翅膀，想让他飞过爱琴海，回到雅典。这大概是人类最早关于飞翔的梦想。他叮嘱伊卡鲁斯，不要飞得太高，以免离太阳太近，烧化翅膀。
这场以追求自由开始的飞行，以伊卡鲁斯的坠海告终。他忘记了父亲的叮咛，飞得太高，翅膀在阳光中融化，伊卡鲁斯葬身大海。
后来，文艺复兴时期尼德兰大画家勃鲁盖尔(Pieter Bruegel，约1525—1569)根据这一题材，创作了《伊卡鲁斯坠海图》(Land-scapewith the Fall of Icarus，现藏布鲁塞尔皇家古典美术馆)。再后来，英国大诗人奥登看到这幅作品，写下了那首著名的《美术馆》。
