Poets are sensitive, ethereal creatures, ineffectual dreamers obsessed with metaphors and finding the right rhythms and rhymes. They're generally harmless, right? Not always. On this list, there are killers, crooks, plotters, rakes, a blackmailer, several revolutionaries, heartbreakers, duelists, drunkards, an opium fiend, a serious oddball, and even one fascist. To borrow the words of Lady Caroline Lamb, who played mistress to one of them, these men were mad, bad, and dangerous to know.

人们印象中诗人是机智敏感，超凡脱俗，痴迷修辞和韵律的梦想家。他们通常应该不会惹什么麻烦，对不对？但事实并非如此。以下列出的十位诗人简直无恶不作，他们不是杀人放火，欺诈勒索就是决斗厮杀，策划阴谋，他们还造反，负心，酗酒，吸食鸦片，放荡不羁，行为古怪甚至还有一个法西斯主义者。借其中一人的情妇卡洛琳·兰姆的话来说这真是一群疯狂，恶劣又危险的人。

10. Fran漀椀猀 Villon

10. 弗朗索瓦·维庸

Villon by name and villain by nature, he was a murderer, thief, and an all-round low-life. He was also the finest lyric poet in France in the 15th century. Born in either 1431 or 1432, he was brought up by a professor of canon law in Paris. After leaving university in 1452, his life descended into a series of brawls, imprisonments, and exiles. His only appearances within the historical record come from prison data.

维庸可以说是干尽坏事，他不仅是小偷还是杀人犯。但也是十五世纪法国最优秀的抒情诗人。维庸1431年或1432年出生于巴黎，被一名教士收养。1452年离开大学之后，他的生活一落千丈，打架闹事，锒铛入狱，多次被驱逐流放。历史上对他的记载基本都与他入狱相关。

Villon by name and villain by nature, he was a murderer, thief, and an all-round low-life. He was also the finest lyric poet in France in the 15th century. Born in either 1431 or 1432, he was brought up by a professor of canon law in Paris. After leaving university in 1452, his life descended into a series of brawls, imprisonments, and exiles. His only appearances within the historical record come from prison data.

1455年，维庸在巴黎醉酒后，与人争执中捅死了一名律师。他本应被逐出巴黎，却得到了王室的赦免。1456年，他又带领着一帮强盗从纳瓦拉学院里偷了500顶金冠。因此再次遭到驱逐。1457年，他在布洛瓦服刑，1461年，在穆兰服刑。维庸最后出现在巴黎的记录是1462年的盗窃罪。刑满释放后，他又参与了一场打架，被判处死刑，后改为流放。1463年之后，他就彻底消失了。

Despite his lifestyle, Villon was a master of the intricate poetic forms of the ballade, the rondeau, and the chanson. His longer works touch on cosmology, satire, and religious symbolism. His work is rife with themes of failed love, melancholia, human suffering, lost time, and the ubiquity of death, featuring a cast of princes and prostitutes mired in Parisian brothels and drinking dens. Rimbaud revived his work in the 19th century, while Rossetti translated it into English, giving us the magnificent line “Where are the snows of yesteryear?”

虽然行径不端，但是维庸在叙事诗，回旋诗和香颂上造诣颇高。他的长诗涉及到宇宙学，讽刺和宗教象征等方面。作品中充满了对爱情失意，痛苦忧郁，时光逝去以及死亡不可避免的诉说，多以各种王子和妓女沉溺在妓院和酒馆为主题。19世纪，兰波重整他的作品并由罗塞蒂译成英语，才使我们领略到了“Where are the snows of yesteryear”这样精彩的诗句。

9.Sir Thomas Wyatt

9. 托马斯·怀亚特爵士

Wyatt played the dangerous game of sex, money, and power that constituted court politics under Henry VIII. He made his life even more dangerous by competing with the king for the hand of Anne Boleyn. After all, Henry's enemies had a habit of ending up with their heads separated from their bodies.

怀亚特游走在亨利八世统治下集性，金钱和权力于一体的宫廷政治游戏中。他和国王亨利争夺安妮·博林的芳心更使他身陷险境。毕竟，亨利的敌人通常都要脑袋搬家。

Wyatt was a courtier and companion of Henry VIII from the age of 13. He was married at 17 and separated soon after. Some sources say that he had become the lover of Anne Boleyn by 1522, not long before she turned Henry's head. At least four poems by Wyatt are believed to refer to Anne, including the sonnet “Whoso list to hunt . . . ” that conceptualizes her as a deer hunted by many suitors but belonging solely to Caesar.

怀亚特从13岁起就是亨利八世的朝臣和玩伴。他17岁结婚，不久便离婚。传闻说1522年他成了安妮的情人，但没过多久，她移情别恋了亨利。怀亚特的诗中至少有四首是写安妮的，包括“Whoso list to hunt…“， 诗中他把她比喻成小鹿，受到众多人追逐，却只属于凯撒。

His diplomatic career reflected his falling in and out of favor with the king. He was sent away from court to France in 1526 and to Italy in 1527, where he was captured by troops of the Holy Roman Empire. During Anne's fall from grace in 1536, Wyatt was imprisoned for associating with her and viewed her execution from his cell. In 1539, he was the lead plotter in a plan to assassinate the Catholic Reginald Pole using intricate ciphers and poisons. By 1540, he was back in prison for treason. His later mistress was also rumored to have been taken by Henry as his lover.

他的外交生涯反应了国王对他的喜恶变化。1526年，他被远送法国。1527年又到了意大利，在此被神圣罗马帝国军队俘获。1536年安妮王后失宠时，他因为与其有联系而被关押并在监狱中目睹了她的行刑。1539年，他带头策划，用毒药暗杀天主教红衣教主雷吉纳尔德·博勒。1540年，他又因叛国罪进了监狱。传言他后来的情人也被亨利国王占为己有。

His work was never published within his lifetime, but he was one of the leading poets of the English Renaissance. During his time in Italy, he picked up the works of Petrarch and introduced Italian models and poetic forms into English verse, including the sonnet.

怀亚特生前没有发表过一篇作品，但他是美国文艺复兴时期的一位重要诗人。在意大利期间，他学习了彼得拉克的作品并将意大利诗歌形式引入英文诗中，其中包括十四行诗。

8.John Wilmot, Earl Of Rochester

8.约翰·威尔莫特·罗切斯特伯爵

Rochester's life was one long shambolic debauch before he died exhausted at age 33 in 1680. He was the greatest rakehell in the golden age of hell-raising that followed the Restoration of the monarchy under Charles II in 1665.

1680年33岁的罗切斯特筋疲力尽而死。在此之前，他一直过着混乱不堪，放荡堕落的生活。1665年查理二世复辟后，英国处于地狱般的大混乱中。他是那时最放荡的人。

Brought up by a Puritan mother, Rochester was introduced to drinking and whoring as a teenager at Oxford. Facing opposition from the parents of the girl he wanted to marry, Rochester simply kidnapped her from her coach one night at Charing Cross. He was sent to the Tower of London, but he married her on his release in 1667.

罗彻斯特的母亲是位清教徒，但他十几岁的时候就在牛津学会了喝酒和嫖娼。罗切斯特爱上了一个女孩并想娶她为妻，却遭到了女孩父母的反对。于是一天晚上他就在查林十字车站绑架了她。他因此被关进了伦敦塔，但是1667刑满释放后还是娶了她。

All noblemen took mistresses, but Rochester possessed an especially voracious appetite for whoring. His poetry is obsessed with liaisons, orgies, and drinking. He once confessed to having been continuously drunk for five years, amid complaints from his neighbors about his naked cavorting.

所有贵族都有情人，但是罗切斯特却对嫖娼情有独钟。他的诗歌中充满了对偷情，狂欢，饮酒的描述。他曾在面对邻居们对他赤裸狂欢抱怨时承认自己已经连续五年长醉不醒了。

Rochester fought a sword fight with French officers at the Paris Opera in 1669, challenged several enemies to duels and was involved in the death of a drinking companion after a heavy session in 1676 ended with his cronies attacking a constable. He spent the 1670s in disgrace after insulting the king's favorite mistress, drunkenly destroying the royal sundial, and mistakenly handing Charles II a poem lampooning him.

1669年，罗切斯特在巴黎歌剧院与法国军官以剑相搏，击败了几位对手。1676年，在一次重要会议结束时他的亲信攻击了一名王室总管，之后他也卷入了酒友的死亡事件。他侮辱了国王最喜爱的情妇，醉酒打坏了皇家日冕又错献给了查理二世一首讽刺他的诗。这些事故让他在17世纪70年代生活得很不容易。

Although an enthusiastic participant in the sybaritic culture of the Restoration, Rochester remained a sardonic observer of the mores of his age in his verse. His work was important in developing the rhymed couplet in iambic pentameter as a medium for satire and for his imitations of the Roman poets Horace and especially Lucretius.

尽管罗切斯特热衷复辟时期的奢侈逸乐，他在他的诗歌中不忘讽刺那个时代的道德观念。他的作品模仿古罗马诗人贺拉斯和卢克莱修，作为讽刺的媒介，在五音步抑扬格中双韵体的发展起着重要作用。

At his best, Rochester combines wit, bawdiness, satire, and the materialism of Thomas Hobbes. Try “A Satyr Against Mankind,” “Signior Dildo,” or “A Ramble in St. James's Park,” but you might not want to read them too openly.

罗切斯特尽其所能地综合了智慧，淫秽，讽刺和托马斯·霍布斯的唯物主义。你可以试读一下他的“危害人类的色情狂”，“老先生的假阳具”或“A漫步在圣詹姆斯公园”，不过最好不要在公共场合阅读。

7.Richard Savage

7.理查德·萨维奇

The aptly named Richard Savage was a satirist, blackmailer, murderer, and a friend of the poet Alexander Pope. He possessed a spectacular talent for falling out with the people he relied on for his well-being, and he blackmailed the woman he claimed was his mother.

“萨维奇”是凶狠攻击，猛烈批评的意思。理查德·萨维奇人如其名是个讽刺作家，勒索杀人犯。 他也是诗人亚历山大·蒲柏的朋友。他有一个奇妙的天赋那就是和他依赖的人闹翻，他还曾敲诈过一名他声称是他母亲的女人。

His origins are murky, but the facts seem to be these: In 1698, the Earl of Macclesfield divorced his wife, Anne, who then married one Colonel Brett. She also had two children with a man called Richard Savage, the 4th Earl Rivers, one of whom was given away at six months old in 1697. In 1718, the poet Richard Savage appeared, claiming to be the abandoned child and that he had been persecuted by his mother, kidnapped, and sent to the West Indies. It's almost certain that he was an imposter, but he wrote a poem entitled “The Bastard” detailing his mother's abuse and used the ensuing scandal to blackmail her family. Her son, Viscount Tyrconnell, gave him a home and 200 a year for his silence.

萨维奇的出身不明确，但是事情好像是这样的：在1698年，麦克尔斯菲尔德伯爵与妻子安妮离婚。安妮后来又嫁给了一个叫布雷特的上校。她还和一名叫理查德·萨维奇的里弗斯第四伯爵有两个孩子，其中一个在1697年，六个月大时送走了。1718年，诗人理查德·萨维奇出现了。他自称是被遗弃的孩子，遭到母亲的迫害和绑架并被送到了西印度群岛上。几乎可以肯定他在撒谎，但是他写了首名为“野种”的诗详细描述母亲对他的虐待并用接踵而来的丑闻敲诈他的家人。她的儿子，子爵蒂尔康奈，给了萨维奇一处住所并每年给他200英镑作为封口费。

In 1727, this charming figure murdered a man named James Sinclair in a coffeehouse following a drunken argument. He was sentenced to hang at the Old Bailey before outcry among the literati led to a royal pardon from Queen Charlotte and a royal pension until her death in 1737.

1727年，这位迷人的诗人在一个咖啡馆中醉酒闹事，杀死了一名叫詹姆斯·辛克莱的男子。在伦敦中央刑事法院上判处绞刑。但由于文人的强烈反对，他得到了夏洛特女王的赦免并领取皇家养老金直到1737年去世。

He relied on Pope for money and provided gossip on fellow poets as material for Pope's Dunciad. Having once been patronized by Sir Richard Steele, the founder of The Spectator magazine, the pair soon had a falling out. By 1742, Savage had even managed to sufficiently annoy Pope to the point that he canceled the pension he provided. He died in debtor's prison in Bristol a year later.

经济上萨维奇受蒲柏接济，而他向蒲柏提供其他诗人的八卦作为其长篇讽刺诗《愚人记》的素材。他曾受到观察家杂志创办人理查德·斯蒂尔爵士的资助，但很快这两人就闹翻了。到1742年，萨维奇甚至惹急了蒲柏，使其不再为他提供资金。一年后他在比利斯托尔因债入狱并死在了狱中。

6.George Gordon, Lord Byron

6.乔治·戈登·拜伦勋爵

Lord Byron was the ultimate Romantic rock-and-rolling bad boy, with a taste for excess. Men wanted to be like him, and women wanted to be with him. His mad energy was probably inherited from “Mad Jack” Byron, his womanizing father who was rumored to have slit his own throat. The younger Byron turned the great hall of his ancestral home into a shooting gallery, drank from a cup formed from a human skull, and lived off nothing more than biscuits and wine. He spent his Grand Tour hanging out with Albanian warlords and kept a pet bear at Cambridge. He swam the Hellespont and kept a menagerie of foxes, monkeys, peacocks, cats, falcons, and a wolf in his palazzo in Venice.

拜伦是典型的浪漫主义时期放肆成性的不良少年。男人想和他一样，女人想和他一起。拜伦的疯狂劲可能是继承了他的风流父亲“疯狂杰克”拜伦，传闻他切开了自己的喉咙。小拜伦把他家祖屋的大厅变成了射击场，用人头骨做的酒杯喝酒，每天生活在酒池肉林中。遍游欧洲大陆时他整天和阿尔巴尼亚军阀一起四处游荡，还在剑桥养了一只熊当宠物。他常在达达尼尔海峡游泳，并且在他威尼斯的房子里开了个小动物园养狐狸，猴子，孔雀，猫，猎鹰还有狼。

His love affairs were countless and frequently scandalous. Several times, his doctors warned about cutting down on the amount of sex he had, as it had actually become physically debilitating. He spent the year 1808 in London and Brighton living with prostitutes, one of whom he dressed as a boy and introduced to visitors as his brother. During their affair, Lady Caroline Lamb would send him locks of her pubic hair as a keepsake.

他的情史数不胜数，且常常让人觉得可耻。他的医生警告过他很多次不要纵欲过度，因为这已经使他身体日渐衰弱。1808年他是在伦敦和布莱顿与妓女一起度过的。他还把其中一个穿上男装介绍给客人，说是他的弟弟。卡洛琳·兰姆夫人和他在一起时还送给他阴毛作为信物。

He went through actresses, opera singers, countesses, and choirboys. He got the stepsister of Mary Shelley pregnant before swiftly dropping her. In Italy, the outraged husband of one mistress, Countess Guiccioli, challenged him to a duel. While living in Venice between 1816 and 1818, he claimed to have slept with 200 women, including a long affair with the wife of his landlord.

他有过各种各样的情人，包括女演员，歌剧演员，伯爵夫人以及唱诗班少年。他让玛丽·雪莱的继妹怀了孕便立马甩了她。在意大利他收到了情人古奇奥利伯爵夫人丈夫愤怒的决斗挑战。他声称1816年到1818年在威尼斯期间睡过200名女子，并长期与他房东的太太偷情。

After marrying in 1816, he abandoned his pregnant wife and fled to the Continent following rumors of incest with his half-sister. Meanwhile, his works were regarded as blasphemous, which made him the most notorious poet in Europe. In Italy, he was connected with the revolutionary Carbonari. He died of fever in 1824 in Greece, after joining their fight for independence from the Turks and paying to re-equip the Greek fleet.

1816年婚后，拜伦抛弃了有孕在身的妻子逃到了欧洲大陆并传闻与同父异母的妹妹乱伦。同时，他的作品被指亵渎神灵，他成了欧洲最臭名昭著的诗人。在意大利，他成了炭烧党的一员。加入土耳其独立战争并重整了希腊舰队之后，拜伦于1824年在希腊死于热病。

注：本文转载自前十网，译者潘洪倩