中国文学英译絮谈

沙枫

“五百光洋买得来”

“只许州官放火，不许百姓点灯。”真是岂有此理。

谈到了“官”，记得苏曼殊的《断鸿零雁记》中有几首《捐官竹枝词》，写来雅谑，讽刺入微。小说写道：

余一日无事，偶出春淙亭眺望，忽见壁上新题，墨痕犹湿。余细视之，即《捐官竹枝词》数章也。其词曰：

二品加衔四品阶，皇然绿轿四人抬。
黄堂半跪称卑府，白简通详署宪台。
督抚请谈当座揖，臬藩接见大门开。
便宜此日称观察，五百光洋买得来。

最后一句，“五百光洋买得来”，五百大洋，便可享受当一天“观察”高官的待遇。一语道破，画龙点睛了。

这首指的是“道员”。

梁社乾把《断鸿零雁记》译成英文，也翻译了这几首《捐官竹枝词》。不过译得比较长，这首八句译成二十一行，如下：

With haughty head in green sedan and borne
By bearers four, there rides a parvenu
Just raised from four-class office to two grades
Above, and now is called an officer
Of second rank, how vain and grand he feels!
The lower officers half kneel when past
He rides, and call themselves, "the humble ones."
Yet, this same haughty rider pound and vain
When off ring up indictments to the man
Above, must be as self-abasing as
The man below was when he rode proud by.
The governor invites this parvenu
To have a little chat.
About they sit,
Polite they bow and smile.
Now when the men
That worked below the governor once see that favor shines on this new guest, they wait
For this new guest to pass their homes and throw
The great front door wide open with a fawning smile.
This day he's called "Official So-and-So".
Five hundred dollars bright in Mex. will buy*
This glorious state described and penned above.

原文到最后才点睛，译文一早就点出了“Parvenu”（暴发户）了。

译文译得相当通俗，所以要这样长。例如，“黄堂”，就意译为“the lower officers”。而“白简通详署宪台”一句，就用了四行英文来表述其意。

（编者注）五百光洋，这里指的是墨西哥银元，晚清时通用。