《红楼梦》翻译（四十）

twin05

组别老师
性别
积分2987
帖子557
注册时间 2010-06-13

twin05 2010-08-16 10:03 | 只看楼主 树型| 收藏| 小中大 1 ^#

《红楼梦》翻译（四十）

原著
　　往常间只有宝玉长谈阔论，今日贾政在这里，便惟有唯唯而已．余者湘云虽系闺阁弱女，却素喜谈论，今日贾政在席，也自缄口禁言．黛玉本性懒与人共，原不肯多语．宝钗原不妄言轻动，便此时亦是坦然自若．故此一席虽是家常取乐，反见拘束不乐．贾母亦知因贾政一人在此所致之故，酒过三巡，便撵贾政去歇息．贾政亦知贾母之意，撵了自己去后，好让他们姊妹兄弟取乐的．贾政忙陪笑道：“今日原听见老太太这里大设春灯雅谜，故也备了彩礼酒席，特来入会．何疼孙子孙女之心，便不略赐以儿子半点？"贾母笑道：“你在这里，他们都不敢说笑，没的倒叫我闷．你要猜谜时，我便说一个你猜，猜不着是要罚的。”贾政忙笑道：“自然要罚．若猜着了，也是要领赏的。”贾母道：“这个自然。”说着便念道：

　　猴子身轻站树梢．

　　——打一果名．

　　贾政已知是荔枝，便故意乱猜别的，罚了许多东西，然后方猜着，也得了贾母的东西．然后也念一个与贾母猜，念道：

　　身自端方，体自坚硬．

　　虽不能言，有言必应．

　　——打一用物．

　　说毕，便悄悄的说与宝玉．宝玉意会，又悄悄的告诉了贾母．贾母想了想，果然不差，便说：“是砚台。”贾政笑道：“到底是老太太，一猜就是。”回头说：“快把贺彩送上来． "地下妇女答应一声，大盘小盘一齐捧上．贾母逐件看去，都是灯节下所用所顽新巧之物，甚喜，遂命：“给你老爷斟酒。”宝玉执壶，迎春送酒．贾母因说：“你瞧瞧那屏上，都是他姊妹们做的，再猜一猜我听。”

　　贾政答应，起身走至屏前，只见头一个写道是：

　　能使妖魔胆尽摧，身如束帛气如雷．

　　一声震得人方恐，回首相看已化灰．贾政道：“这是炮竹嗄。”宝玉答道：“是。”贾政又看道：

　　天运人功理不穷，有功无运也难逢．

　　因何镇日纷纷乱，只为阴阳数不同．贾政道：“是算盘。”迎春笑道：“是。”又往下看是：

　　阶下儿童仰面时，清明妆点最堪宜．

　　游丝一断浑无力，莫向东风怨别离．贾政道：“这是风筝。”探春笑道：“是。”又看道是：

　　前身色相总无成，不听菱歌听佛经．

　　莫道此生沉黑海，性中自有大光明．贾政道：“这是佛前海灯嗄。”惜春笑答道：“是海灯。”

　　贾政心内沉思道：“娘娘所作爆竹，此乃一响而散之物．迎春所作算盘，是打**如麻．探春所作风筝，乃飘飘浮荡之物．惜春所作海灯，一发清净孤独．今乃上元佳节，如何皆作此不祥之物为戏耶？ "心内愈思愈闷，因在贾母之前，不敢形于色，只得仍勉强往下看去．只见后面写着七言律诗一首，却是宝钗所作，随念道：

　　朝罢谁携两袖烟，琴边衾里总无缘．

　　晓筹不用鸡人报，五夜无烦侍女添．

　　焦首朝朝还暮暮，煎心日日复年年．

　　光阴荏苒须当惜，风雨阴晴任变迁．贾政看完，心内自忖道：“此物还倒有限．只是小小之人作此词句，更觉不祥，皆非永远福寿之辈。”想到此处，愈觉烦闷，大有悲戚之状，因而将适才的精神减去十分之**，只垂头沉思．

　　贾母见贾政如此光景，想到或是他身体劳乏亦未可定，又兼之恐拘束了众姊妹不得高兴顽耍，即对贾政云：“你竟不必猜了，去安歇罢．让我们再坐一会，也好散了。”贾政一闻此言，连忙答应几个"是"字，又勉强劝了贾母一回酒，方才退出去了．回至房中只是思索，翻来复去竟难成寐，不由伤悲感慨，不在话下．

　　且说贾母见贾政去了，便道：“你们可自在乐一乐罢。”一言未了，早见宝玉跑至围屏灯前，指手画脚，满口批评，这个这一句不好，那一个破的不恰当，如同开了锁的猴子一般．宝钗便道：“还象适才坐着，大家说说笑笑，岂不斯文些儿。”凤姐自里间忙出来插口道：“你这个人，就该老爷每日令你寸步不离方好．适才我忘了，为什么不当着老爷，撺掇叫你也作诗谜儿．若果如此，怕不得这会子正出汗呢。”说的宝玉急了，扯着凤姐儿，扭股儿糖似的只是厮缠．贾母又与李宫裁并众姊妹说笑了一会，也觉有些困倦起来．听了听已是漏下四鼓，命将食物撤去，赏散与众人，随起身道：“我们安歇罢．明日还是节下，该当早起．明日晚间再玩罢。”且听下回分解．
霍克斯译文
The little boy’s presence provided the company with something to laugh and talk about. But not for long. Bao-yu, who normally did most of the talking on occasions like this, was today reduced by his father’s presence to saying no more than ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to remarks made by other people. As for the rest: Xiang-yun, in spite of her sheltered upbringing, was normally an animated, not to say indefatigable talker, but this evening she too seemed to have been afflicted with dumbness by Jia Zheng’s presence; Dai-yu was at the best of times unwilling to say very much in company from a sort of aristocratic lethargy which was a part of her nature; and Bao-chai, whose punctilious correctness made her always sparing in the use of words, even though on this occasion she was probably the least uncomfortable of those present, said little to advance the conversation. As a consequence, what should have been a jolly, intimate family party was painfully unnatural and restrained.
Grandmother Jia knew as well as everyone else that this state of affairs was entirely owing to Jia Zheng’s presence, and after the wine had gone round for the third time, she attempted to drive him off to bed. Jia Zheng, for his part, was perfectly well aware that he was being driven away so that the younger people could feel freer to enjoy themselves and, smiling forcedly, appealed against his banishment:

‘When they told me earlier today that you were planning to give a riddle party, I specially prepared a contribution to the feast so that I might come and join you. You have so much affection for your grandchildren, Mama. Can you not spare just a tiny bit for your son?’
Grandmother Jia laughed:
‘They can’t talk naturally while you are here. All you are doing is making it gloomy for me. I can’t abide it. Well, if you’ve come to answer riddles, I’ll give you a riddle. But if you can’t guess the answer, you will have to pay me a for feit.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Jia Zheng eagerly. ‘And if I guess right, I shall expect to be given a prize.’
‘Of course,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘The monkey’s tail reaches from tree-top to ground. It’s the name of a fruit.’
Jia Zheng knew that the answer to this hoary old chestnut was ‘a longan’ (long ‘un), but pretended not to, and made all kinds of absurd guesses, each time incurring the obligation to pay his mother a forfeit, before finally giving the right answer and receiving the old lady’s prize. Then he propounded a riddle of his own for her:

‘My body’s square,
Iron-hard am I.
I speak no word,
But words supply.

—It’s a useful object.’
He whispered the answer to Bao-yu, who, readily understand ing what was expected of him, surreptitiously passed it on to Grandmother Jia. The old lady, having thought for a bit and decided that it sounded all right, said:
‘An inkstone.’
‘Bravo, Mamma! Right first time!’ said Jia Zheng, and turn ing round to address the servants, he asked them to bring in the presents for Lady Jia. There was an answering call from the women below, and presently a number of them came for ward bearing trays and boxes of various shapes and sizes which they handed up onto the kang. Grandmother Jia examined them one by one. They all contained traditional Lantern Festival presents, but in new and exquisite designs and of the veryhighest quality. The old lady was obviously pleased.
‘Come, children!’ she commanded jovially. ‘Give the Master a drink!’
Bao-yu stood up and poured wine from the wine-kettle into a little cup and Ying-chun handed it ceremoniously to her uncle.
‘Have a look at the riddles on the screen,’ said Grandmother Jia when Jia Zheng, with equal ceremony, had drained the cup. ‘They were all made up by the children. See if you can tell me the answers.’
Jia Zheng rose from his seat and went up to the lantern-screen. The first riddle he saw was Yuan-chun’s:

At my coming the devils turn pallid with wonder.
My body’s all folds and my voice is like thunder.

When, alarmed by the sound of my thunderous crash,

You look round, I have already turned into ash.

An object of amusement.

‘Would that be a firework?’ said Jia Zheng.
‘Yes,’ said Bao-yu.
Jia Zheng looked again, this time at Ying-chun’s:

Man’s works and heaven’s laws I execute.
Without heaven’s laws, my workings bear no fruit.
Why am I agitated all day long?
For fear my calculations may be wrong.
A useful object.

‘An abacus?’

There was a laugh from Ying-chun:

‘Yes.’

The next riddle was Tan-chun’s:

In spring the little boys look up and stare
To see me ride so proudly in the air.
My strength all goes when once the bond is parted,
And on the wind I drift off broken-hearted.
An object of amusement.

‘It looks as if that ought to be a kite’, said Jia Zheng.
‘Yes,’ said Tan-chun.
The next riddle he looked at was Dai-yu’s:

At court levée my smoke is in your sleeve:

Music and beds to other sorts I leave.

With me, at dawn you need no watchman’s cry,

At night no maid to bring a fresh supply.

My head burns through the night and through the day,

And year by year my heart consumes away.
The precious moments I would have you spare:
But come fair, foul, or fine, I do not care.

A useful object.

‘That must be an incense-clock.’
Bao-yu answered for her:
‘Yes.’

Jia Zheng looked at the next riddle:

Southward you stare,
He’ll northward glare.
Grieve, and he’s sad.
Laugh, and he’s glad.
A useful object.

‘Very good!’ said Jia Zheng. ‘If the answer is “a mirror”, it is a very good riddle.’
Bao-yu laughed:
‘That is the answer.’
‘Who is it by?’ said Jia Zheng. ‘There is no name on it.’
‘I expect that one is by Bao-yu,’ said Grandmother Jia.
Jia Zheng said nothing and passed on to the next one in silence. It was by Bao-chai:

My ‘eyes’ cannot see and I’m hollow inside.

When the lotuses su**ce, I’ll be by your side.

When the autumn leaves fall I shall bid you adieu,

For our marriage must end when the summer is through.

A useful object.

Jia Zheng knew that the answer must be ‘a bamboo wife’, as they call those wickerwork cylinders which are put between the bedclothes in summertime to make them cooler; but a growing awareness that all the girls’ verses contained images of grief and loss was by now so much affecting him that he felt quite unable to go on.
‘Enough is enough!’ he thought. ‘What can it be that makes these innocent young creatures all produce language that is so tragic and inauspicious? It is almost as if they were all destined to be unfortunate and short-lived and were un consciously foretelling their destiny.’
The gloom into which this reflection plunged him was evident in the melancholy expression on his face and in his bowed and dejected stance. Grandmother Jia noticed it but attributed it to fatigue. She feared that in this melancholy mood his continued presence would place an even greater restraint on the young folk’s gaiety.
‘I think you really oughtn’t to stay,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you go and lie down? The rest of us will sit up for a bit, but I don’t expect we shall go on very much longer.’
‘Yes,’ said Jia Zheng, roused from his reverie by her voice. ‘Yes, of course.’
But he forced himself to resume his former jovial manner and to drink another cup or two of wine with her before finally retiring. Back in his own apartment, he became lost in reverie once more; but whichever direction his thoughts took him in, he remained melancholy and troubled.
Meanwhile the party he had just left was proceeding some what differently.
‘Now, my dears, you can enjoy yourselves!’ Grandmother Jia said as soon as he had left the room; and the words were no sooner out of her mouth than Bao-yu leaped up from his seat and over to the screen and began criticizing the riddles on it - this one had a line wrong here — that one’s words didn’t suit the subject — pointing with his finger and capering about for all the world like a captive monkey that had just been let off its chain.
‘Can’t we sit down and enjoy ourselves quietly, as we were doing just now,’ said Dai-yu, ‘instead of all this prancing about?’
Xi-feng put in a word too, emerging from the inner room to say it:
‘You ought to have Uncle Zheng with you every day and never budge an inch from his side!’ She turned to the others: ‘What a pity I didn’t think of it at the time: we ought to have got Uncle to make him compose some more riddles for us. Then we should have seen him sweat!’
Bao-yu was greatly exasperated by this remark and tried to seize hold of her. Xi-feng tried to ward him off, and the result was that the two of them became locked in a sort of playful wrestling-match.
Grandmother Jia continued for a while to laugh and joke with Li Wan and the girls, but soon began to feel tired and sleepy. The night-drum was sounding, and when they stopped to listen they found it was already the beginning of the fourth watch. She ordered the food to be cleared away, telling the servants that they might have what was left over for them selves.
‘Time for bed, children!’ she said, rising to her feet. ‘We can do this again tomorrow, if you like; but now we must have some sleep.’
With that the party gradually broke up and they all dis persed to their rooms.
What happened thereafter will be told in the following chapter.

杨宪益译文
Normally Baoyu liked to hold forth at great length but today, in his father’s presence, he simply answered briefly when spoken to; and Xiangyun, al though a great chatterbox for a girl, seemed afflicted with dumbness by her uncle too. Daiyu was too reserved ever to talk much in company, and Baochai also behaved in the manner natural to her, choosing her words with care. So there was a constraint about this family party.
The Lady Dowager, knowing that Jia Zheng was the cause, suggested after three rounds of drinks that he should withdraw to rest. Aware that she wanted him out of the way so that the young people might enjoy themselves better, Jia Zheng said with a smile:
“When I heard today that you had prepared all these lantern-riddles, I brought some gifts and delicacies to join in. Won’t you spare your son a little of the love you have for your grandchildren?”
The old lady chuckled.
“None of them will laugh and talk with you here, and that’s very dull,” she said. “Well, if it’s riddles you want, I’ll give you one. But if you guess wrong you’ll have to pay a forfeit.”
“Certainly. And if I guess right shall I win a prize?”
“Of course.” Then she recited, “The monkey, being light of limb, stands on the topmost branch. It’s the name of a fruit.”
Jia Zheng knew of course that the answer was lichee,2 but he delib erately gave wrong answers and had to pay several forfeits before he guessed right and received a prize from his mother. Then he in turn set her a riddle:
Its body is square,
Its substance firm and hard;
Though it cannot speak
It will assuredly3 record anything said.
—
A useful object.
He whispered the answer to Baoyu, who took the hint and secretly told his grandmother. The old lady thought it over and decided he was right.
“An inkstone,” she said.
“Trust you, mother, to get it right first time.” Jia Zheng smiled and turned to order, “Bring in the presents.” There was an answering cry from the women below, who brought forward various trays and little boxes. The Lady Dowager, inspecting them one by one, was delighted to find them novelties for the Lantern Festival.
“Pour wine for the master,” she ordered.
Baoyu poured the wine and Yingchun presented it, after which the old lady said:
“Let me hear you guess some of the riddles the children have put on the screen.”
Jia Zheng rose and walked up to the screen. The first riddle he saw was:

Monsters I can affright and put to flight;
A roll of silk my form; my thunderous crash
Strikes dread into the hearts of all,
Yet when they look around I’ve turned to ash.
“Isn’t this a firecracker?” asked Jia Zheng.
When Baoyu said that was right, his father read on:
No end to the labours of men, to heaven’s decrees,
But labour unblessed by Heaven will fruitless be.
What causes this constant, frenzied activity?
The uncertainty of mortal destiny.
“An abacus?”
Yingchun agreed with a smile.
Jia Zheng read the next riddle:
The children by the steps look up:
Spring surely has no fitter decoration.
But when the silk cord breaks it drifts away,
Blame not the east wind for this separation.
“That sounds like a kite,” said Jia Zheng.
When Tanchun had confirmed this he looked at another riddle:
A former life’s appearance come to nought,
Deaf to folk-songs the chanting of sutras

she now hears;
Say not this life is sunk in a sea of darkness,
For in her heart a shining light appears.

“The lamp before a Buddhist shrine?” queried Jia Zheng.
“Yes,” said Xichun with a smile.
Jia
Zheng thought to himself: “Her Royal Highness wrote about a firecracker which disintegrates after a single explosion. Yingchun’s sub ject, the abacus, is in constant commotion; Tanchun’s kite is something which drifts away with the wind; Xichun’s temple lamp is even more lonely and neglected. What ill-omened subjects for all of them to choose so soon after the New Year!”
The more he reflected, the deeper his dismay. But in his mother’s presence he dared not disclose it and forced himself to look at the other riddles. Observing that the last was a verse by Baochai, he read it.

Who leaves the levee with smoke-scented sleeves?

Not destines by the lute or quilt to sit,

It needs no watchman to announce the dawn,

No maid at the fifth watch to replenish it.

Burned with anxiety both day and night,

Consumed with anguish as time slips away,

As life speeds past we learn to hold it dear

What cares it whether foul or fair the day?
After reading this Jia Zheng reflected with dismay, “The object itself isn’t ill-omened,4
but what inauspicious lines for a young girl to write. It doesn’t look as if any of these girls will have good fortune or long life.”
Sunk in gloom be looked the picture of grief as he lowered his head in thought.
His mother imagined that he must be tired, and felt his presence was spoiling the young people’s enjoyment.
“There’s no need for you to guess any more answers,” she said. “You’d better go and rest. We shan’t sit up much longer either.”
Jia Zheng assented with alacrity and forced himself to toast his mother

once more before he withdrew. Back in his own apartment, he turned the matter over in his mind with a grievous sense of foreboding and was unable to sleep. But no more of this.

As soon as he had gone the Lady Dowager urged her grand-children, “Now relax and have some fun!”

Baoyu had already run up to the screen-lantern and was prancing about like a monkey freed from its chain, pulling different riddles to pieces.

“Why not sit down as you were before,” said Baochai, “and chat with us in a more civilized way?”

Xifeng, who had joined them now, chimed in, “you ought to have the master keeping you by his side all the time. I forgot just now to suggest that you should make up some riddles in his presence. If I had, I’m sure you’d still be in a cold sweat.”

Baoyu made a frantic grab at her and a scrimmage ensued.

After chatting a little with Li Wan and the girls the Lady Dowager began to feel tired, and hearing the fourth watch sounded she ordered the food to be cleared away, telling the servants they could have what was left.

“Let’s rest now,” she said, rising to her feet. “Tomorrow’s still a holiday, and we ought to get up early. We can enjoy ourselves again in the evening.”

To know what happened next day, read the chapter which follows.

TOP

<<上一主题|下一主题>>

1/1页1 跳转到页

《红楼梦》翻译 （四十）

《红楼梦》翻译 （四十）

相关主题

《红楼梦》翻译（四十）

《红楼梦》翻译（四十）