譯／陳韋廷
On a cool evening in early November, in a backroom of the Damascus Opera House, a women’s choir was rehearsing an old favorite, a sunny ballad from a childhood cartoon. When they reached the chorus — “How sweet it is to live in one house, how sweet to live in one hometown” — one of the singers, Safana Baqleh, began to weep into her hands.
The song reminded her of all that she had lost. Her closest friends had either left Syria or blocked her on Facebook over political disagreements. Sometimes, the solitude felt crushing. “I want to take my baby for a walk, but I have no one to visit,” Baqleh said. “No one. Absolutely no one.”
11月初某個涼爽的夜晚，一個女聲合唱團正在大馬士革歌劇院後台練唱一首最受喜愛的老歌，一首在童年卡通片中就聽到的快樂歌謠。當他們唱到合唱句「住在同一個屋子裡有多甜蜜，住在同一個家鄉裡有多甜蜜」時，其中一位歌手莎法娜．巴克雷開始掩面而泣。
這首歌讓她想起她失去的一切。她最親密的朋友不是離開了敘利亞，就是因為政治上的分歧而在臉書上把她給封鎖了。這種孤獨有時讓人無法承受。巴克雷說：「我想帶我的貝比出去走走，可是我沒有任何人可以拜訪。沒人，完完全全沒人。」
After more than six years of war, nearly a fourth of all Syrians live in exile. The loneliness of those who remain hangs like thick fog over Damascus, the capital. Lifelong Damascenes wonder why they are still here, when so many friends and family have packed up, died or disappeared. Newcomers, displaced by the war, move cautiously, unsure about their fate, or who is who.
I traveled to Damascus recently on a rare visa issued to a U.S. journalist. I was almost always accompanied by a government-registered escort, which seemed to make some people reticent, and there were parts of the city I wasn’t allowed to visit.
經歷過六年多的戰爭後，將近四分之一的敘利亞人流亡異鄉。那些留在大馬士革的人們的孤獨感，則如濃霧般壟罩著這個首都。眼見這麼多的朋友和家人收拾行李離去、死亡或失踪，終其一生住在大馬士革的人們不免納悶，為何自己仍留在此地。因戰爭而流離失所的新來者小心翼翼，對於自身命運或者誰是誰都感到茫然。
我最近因獲得難得發給美國記者的簽證而去了大馬士革一趟，有個政府註冊的護衛幾乎一直陪在我身旁，這似乎讓一些民眾變得沉默，而城市內某些地方我也不准參觀。
Still, it was impossible not to notice how Damascus had been altered since pro-democracy protests erupted nearly seven years ago, only to be crushed by President Bashar Assad and then morph into a civil war that scattered Syrians across the world and turned their country into a chessboard for more powerful countries.
In recent months, Assad’s forces, helped by Iran and Russia, have reclaimed much of the country from insurgents. There are fewer checkpoints in Damascus than before, the streets are bustling later into the evenings and electricity has been completely restored. Still, some afternoons, government forces blast artillery into rebel enclaves on the city’s edge; in retaliation, rebels fire shells into the narrow lanes of the old section of the city, not long ago killing a shopkeeper playing backgammon with his neighbor.
儘管如此，若想不注意到大馬士革近7年前爆發民主抗議活動以來的改變，是不可能的，那些抗議活動遭阿塞德總統鎮壓，然後變成一場內戰，使敘利亞人分散至世界各地，並把這個國家變成更強大國家較勁的棋盤。
阿塞德的部隊近幾個月在伊朗和俄羅斯的幫助下，已經從叛亂分子手中收復該國大片地區。大馬士革的檢查站比以前少了，街道晚上熱鬧的時間更長了，電力也已完全恢復。然而仍有幾天下午，政府軍向城市邊緣的叛軍占據區發射砲彈，而叛軍也進行還擊，向這座城市的老城區內窄巷發射砲彈，不久前才殺害了一名在跟鄰居玩西洋棋的店主。
In a park in the city’s center, families who fled the latest war zones sit with plastic bags and babies. A soldier sits in the bushes, keeping a close eye on everything and everyone.
On the main highway, shiny new restaurants cater to people who have enriched themselves during the war. In the middle of the workday, you walk in to find men in track suits silently smoking water pipes, watching everyone.
在市中心一座公園內，從最新交戰區域逃離的幾家人坐在那兒，帶著塑膠袋和嬰兒。一名士兵坐在灌木叢內，緊盯著每件事和每個人。
而在主要幹道上，閃亮的新餐廳接待著在戰爭期間致富的人，你在上班日的中午走進餐廳，會發現穿著運動裝的人靜靜地抽著水煙，監視著每一個人。
說文解字看新聞
文／陳韋廷
2011年開始的敘國內戰，加上極端組織「伊斯蘭國」（IS）的侵襲，古城大馬士革景觀徹底改變，而聯合國自去年初為解決敘利亞內戰在日內瓦舉行的共八輪和談，迄今仍因政府與反對派的嚴重分歧而幾無進展，這也證實巴克雷文中所言非假，敘國政治分歧之深撕裂了社會，更嚴重到加深民眾的孤獨感與無力感。
soliude意指孤獨，由具有單一、獨自意思的字根sol和代表性質之名詞字尾tude組合而成，形容詞為solitudinous，而同字根單字還有sole（唯一的）、solo（獨唱／獨奏）、soliloquy（自言自語）、solitary（孤獨的）、solitaire（單人紙牌遊戲）、desolate（荒蕪；孤寂）等等。
而文中片語morph into則指的是「演變」、「轉變」之意，意同於另個片語transform into，兩者介係詞後均加上改變後之事物。
