意味

次の詩はある詩の一節ですが、この中の
You lived aloof, maintaining to the end　your magnificent disdain.
部分の訳がよくわかりません。


Here is my gift, not roses on your grave,
not sticks of burning incense.
You lived aloof, maintaining to the end
your magnificent disdain.
You drank wine, and told the wittiest jokes,
and suffocated inside stifling walls.

You lived aloof, maintaining to the end
your magnificent disdain.

No.1 ベストアンサー 回答者： yutaka777 回答日時： 2004/10/23 09:06

You lived aloof, maintaining to the end

your magnificent disdain.
は
You lived aloof, maintaining your magnificent disdain to the end.
と考えればいかがですか？
世の中（周囲）とは少し距離をおき、最後（＝死ぬまで）"magnificent disdain"を持って生きたのではないでしょうか。
"magnificent disdain"は日本語にしにくいですが、使う言い方です。「崇高さをもったすごい軽蔑」ぐらいですかねぇ。^_^；
文法的には"maintaining"は分詞構文ですね。"maintain"の目的語が"your magnificent disdain"です。


詩全体は以下の通りですよね。

Here is my gift, not roses on your grave,
not sticks of burning incense.
You lived aloof, maintaining to the end
your magnificent disdain.
You drank wine, and told the wittiest jokes,
and suffocated inside stifling walls.
Alone you let the terrible stranger in,
and stayed with her alone.

Now you're gone, and nobody says a word
about your troubled and exalted life.
Only my voice, like a flute, will mourn
at your dumb funeral feast.
Oh, who would have dared believe that half-crazed I,
I, sick with grief for the buried past,
I, smoldering on a slow fire,
having lost everything and forgotten all,
would be fated to commemorate a man
so full of strength and will and bright inventions,
who only yesterday it seems, chatted with me,
hiding the tremor of his mortal pain.

Anna Akhmatova, "In Memory of M. B."