中国文学英译絮谈

沙枫

王船山诗词英译

王船山的著作，在封建统治时代，流传并不广泛。有些书靠亲友学生抄录，才保存下来。他的诗词等几种作品，到乾隆时被列入必须全部销毁的“禁书”，甚至个别著作的木刻板片，都被追出毁掉。到十九世纪中期，王船山的大部分著作才刊印出来。

王船山的词，有 Birch 翻译的三首，收入其所选译的“Anthology of Chinese Literature Volume 2”（《中国文选第二集》）书内，于一九七二年出版。

《清平乐•咏雨》原词如下：

归禽响暝，隔断南枝径。
不管垂杨珠泪迸，滴碎荷声千顷。

随波赚杀鱼儿，浮萍乍满清池。
谁信碧云深处，夕阳仍在天涯？

英译如下：

Cries of homing birds fill the dusk,
The path to the south is curtained off.
Pearls, tears, burst from the weeping willows,
Sending their spatter across the lotus acres.

Rain-risen ripples tease the fish to distraction,
Invest the clear pool with a duckweed cover.
Hard to believe, where turquoise clouds are deepest,
The setting sun still rests on the horizon.

《玉楼春•白莲》原词如下：

娟娟片约涵秋影，地照银塘光不定。
绿云冉冉粉初匀，玉露冷冷香自省。

荻花初起秋波冷，独拥檀心窥晓镜。
他时欲与问归魂，水碧天空清夜永。

英译如下：

Slender moon-silver plunged in autumn shadows,
Flickering reflection close on silver pool.
Freshly powdered against soft clouds of hair,
Dew sprinkled clear as jade, and a fragrance self-aware.

Against the wind from the reeds, and the cold of the autumn waves,
She guards her rust gold heart, with a glance in the mirror of dawn.
When the time comes we will ask where her spirit wanders,
Between green waters and cloudless skies in the long, pure night.

《蝶恋花•铜官戍火》原词如下：

打鼓津头知野戍，万里归舟，认得云中树。
日落长沙天已暮，塞烟猎火中原路。

何处停桡深夜语？江黑云昏，莫向天涯去。
旧是杜陵飘泊处，登山临水伤心句。

英译如下：

Drumbeats announce our sailing to the customs guards,
This endless voyage home
Marked by remembered cloud high forests.
Sunset on Changsha, and in the swift dusk,
Hunters' torches light the shrouding mist through the central lands.

Where is this, that oars cease and voices mutter in the night?
The river black, clouds too thick
To sail on to the sky's edge.
Here long ago came the wandering Tu Fu
To climb a rise, Look down on the water and rhyme his grief.

最后一句，译得很直。在第一首，“天涯”译作“horizon”，第三首则是译作“sky's edge”。