中国文学英译絮谈

沙枫

“黄河”还是“黄沙”？

黄河远上白云间，一片孤城万仞山。
羌笛何须怨杨柳，春风不度玉门关。

这是唐朝王之涣的一首《凉州词》。Payne 的英译这样：

The Yellow River climbs amid the white clouds,
A lonely city stands amid heaven-piercing peaks.
Why should the Tartars complain of the willows?
The wind of spring never crosses the Jade Gate Pass.

吴经熊的英译是这样：

The Yellow River climbs up far into the white clouds,
The Great Wall runs through all the ridges like a continuous thread.
Why should the western pipe "complain about the willows"?
The breath of spring has never passed beyond the Gate of Jade.

“一片孤城”译作“The Great Wall”（万里长城），是不当的。

这是 Bynner 的英译：

Where a yellow river climbs to the white clouds,
Near the one city-wall among ten-thousand-foot mountains.
Tartar under the willows is lamenting on his flute,
That spring never blows to him through the Jade Pass.

一位林先生来信说：“黄河远上白云间”英译，论及这句应为“黄沙直上白云间”，并引竺可桢《物候学》一书为证。爰据此说，另译如下：

A stream of yellow sands swirls up to the white clouds,
A lonely castle stands amid the sky-scraping mountains.
Why should the Tartar flute remind us of the season of willows?
For the breeze of spring has never come across the Jade Pass.

竺可桢、宛敏渭合著的《物候学》一书，也这样说：

也有一些原来不错的诗句，被后人改错了。如王之涣《凉州词》：“黄河远上白云间，一片孤城万仞山。羌笛何须怨杨柳，春风不度玉门关。”这是很合乎凉州以西玉门关一带春天情况的。和王之涣同时而齐名的诗人王昌龄，有一首《从军行》诗：“青海长云暗雪山，孤城遥望玉门关。黄沙百战穿金甲，不破楼兰终不还！”也是把玉门关和黄沙联系起来。在唐朝开元时代的诗人，对于玉门关一带情况比较熟悉，他们知道玉门关一带到春天几乎每天到日中要刮风起黄沙，直冲云霄。但后来不知何时，王之涣《凉州词》第一句便被改成“黄河远上白云间”。到如今，书店流行的唐诗选本，统沿用改过的句子。实际黄河和凉州及玉门关谈不上有什么关系，这样一改，便使这句诗与河西走廊的地理和物候两不对头。

王昌龄这首《从军行》，有 Wang Sheng-chih 的英译如下：

Over the Kokonor the long clouds darken the snow mountains;
The lonely city in the distance looks toward the Yumen Pass.
There is the yellow sand of a hundred battles, armor was pierced through;
We swear we shall defeat the tribesmen before we return.

在喻守真编注的《唐诗三百首详析》中，第一句是作“黄沙直上白云间”，并在注解中说“此句是写风卷黄沙直上云中之境，一本作‘黄河’，特殊费解。”