星期三晚上我逃了法语精读课去参加上海外国语大学第二届外语文化节中英翻译大赛的颁奖仪式。这次提供的翻译原稿有两篇：阿尔弗雷德.丁尼生的诗歌《早春》和亨利.大卫.梭罗的散文《散步》。我译的是前者。其实领奖本身是其次，最重要的是听听评委老师对我译作的点评。其实这次能够得个小奖运气成分很大。5月7日是截止日期，而我在5月6日晚上才开始着手翻译，所以说译稿略显粗糙，炼字也不甚注意。能够得奖一方面可能因为比较对评委老师的胃口，一方面可能因为诗歌的翻译的确是一件难事，毕竟翻译理论认为诗歌是不可译(untranslatable)的。

作为获奖者我有特权与评委吴赟老师坐在一张桌子周围，吃着东西听着她的点评。吴赟老师专攻翻译，而并非诗歌，但点评时她援引了不少事先费心收集的关于不同诗歌体裁的特点，以及阿尔弗雷德.丁尼生本人的诗歌在题材，形式，语言等方面的特点等等资料，可见她治学的严谨。

下面先回顾一下我的译本。

 

             EARLY SPRING                                       早春     
            Alfred Tennyson                             阿尔弗雷德.丁尼生

                    

　　　　　　I.                                                   　I.

ONCE MORE the Heavenly Power                 神谕尘世传圣音，
    Makes all things new,                                 万物复苏始更新。
And domes the red-plow’d hills                    苍穹无际覆群岭，
    With loving blue;                                       山间田野启耕耘。
The blackbirds have their wills,                     乌雀凌云志高翔，
    The throstles too.                                     画眉枝头吟春兴。

                  II.                                                 　II.
Opens a door in heaven;                             气朗天清明如镜，
    From skies of glass                                     洞开天门窥云屏。
A Jacob’s ladder falls                                  忽见云端降天梯，
    On greening grass,                                    落落飘然入翠茵。
And o’er the mountain-walls                        遥知群山层峦外，
    Young angels pass.                                    天之信使始过经。　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
　　　　　　III.　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　III.
Before them fleets the shower,                   山前蒙蒙春雨新，
    And burst the buds,                                  群苞初绽气清沁。
And shine the level lands,                           平原依稀望星影，
    And flash the floods;                                 熠熠波涛与海平。
The stars are from their hands                     上下天光交相映，
    Flung thro’ the woods,                              繁星回影入深林。
　　　　　　IV.                                                　IV.
The woods with living airs                           玲珑清气笼深林，
    How softly fann’d,                                     风拂林动两轻盈。
Light airs from where the deep,                   林中清气由何生？
    All down the sand,                                    足下聚沙成蹊径。
Is breathing in his sleep,                              悠悠而眠润无息，
    Heard by the land.                                    唯有大地倾耳听。
　　　　　　 V.                                                 　V.
O, follow, leaping blood,                              春光渐欲撩佳兴，
    The season’s lure!                                     吾心内外任绕萦。
O heart, look down and up                          上下春光入胸膺，
    Serene, secure,                                        心归静处得安宁。
Warm as the crocus cup,                             春日一如花托暖，
    Like snowdrops, pure!                               纯如雪霰四飘零。

　　　　　　VI.                                                　VI.
Past, Future glimpse and fade                       来时去日归于瞬，
    Thro’ some slight spell,                               惊鸿一瞥觅无影。
A gleam from yonder vale,                            峡间幽处泛零星，
    Some far blue fell,                                      微光遥相与天映。
And sympathies, how frail,                            声馨俱虚不得闻，
    In sound and smell!                                    些些怜惜生我心。　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　                  VII.　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　VII.
Till at thy chuckled note,                              忽闻倩影生幽处，
    Thou twinkling bird,                                    林间群鸟始争鸣。
The fairy fancies range,                                春歌悦兴漫山陵，
    And, lightly stirr’d,                                      清风过处鸟微惊。
Ring little bells of change                              鸟语叽啾如铃动，
    From word to word.                                   一啼一鸣唱春临。
　　　　　　VIII.                                              　VIII.
For now the Heavenly Power                        神谕尘世传圣音，
    Makes all things new,                                  万物复苏始更新。
And thaws the cold, and fills                         冬去春暖化寒冰，
    The flower with dew;                                 露滴晶晶垂落英。
The blackbirds have their wills,                      乌雀亦生冲天志，
    The poets too.                                          凌云高翔似我心。

 

我与评委老师吴赟老师的对话：

于：吴赟老师你好，我想听听您对我的译本的评价。

吴：总体来说，对这首诗的翻译的评价是很困难的。你们到了大三开了翻译课就会讲到诗歌是不可译(untranslatable)的。

于：对。我也曾看到一位翻译评论家写道，评价一首诗有三个等级：好，中，差；评价一首诗的翻译也有三个等级：差，更差，最差。

吴：是这样的。不过这次获奖的作品中有四篇是对这首诗的翻译。四个译本应该说翻得都很好，而且各有特点。先说说这一篇用诗经体翻译的译本。作为翻译，这个译本对原诗的忠实性上做得不是最好，然而我必须说，用诗经体来翻译这首诗是很有创造性的，我个人认为也是最贴切的。

于：为什么呢？

吴：这就要充分考虑到丁尼生诗歌的风格，以及这首诗的内容，主题和语言风格了。这首《早春》秉承了丁尼生诗歌一贯的清新，明快的风格。而且这首诗写的是早春时候，万物复苏，生机盎然的景象。在翻译的时候要充分考虑到它的这一风格。

　　我为什么说这首诗经体的译本最为贴切呢？我们都知道，《诗经》是我国最早的诗歌总集，而且很大一部分来自于民间。它的这一来源就决定了其中的一些诗歌是适于口头传唱的，这就要求它们在形式，内容和语言上保持自然清新的风格。事实上大多数《诗经》中的诗歌的形式都是这样简单明快的。而这种风格与《早春》的特点是不谋而合的，原始的风格用诗经体得到了很好的保存，所以我说这位译者用诗经体是一个很聪明的决定。

于：那么，这两个用五言和七言（我的译本）翻译的版本呢？

吴：如果说有什么不足，这两个译本存在的问题是相同的：五言和七言古诗给人的感觉是庄重和恢弘，尤其是七言的。这一点似乎与原诗的意境不甚相符。

      你这个版本翻得很好的，但似乎就是诗的风格与早春之景不相称。形象一点说吧，这首诗应该是王维的风格，而你的诗却像杜甫的风格。

于：对，我受他的影响确实很大。

吴：这样用有格律的诗体来翻译的确像戴着镣铐跳舞。可王维可以做到＂诗中有画，画中有诗＂。

于：可能因为我是男的。

吴：王维也是男的啊。

（笑）

于：吴老师，谢谢你把这个奖给了我，同时也谢谢你的点评。

吴：好的，那今天就到这儿吧。

 

于睿寅同学，Il y a encore beaucoup de choses à apprendre.

Raying

Après que les vacances sont finis, je vais rentrer à Shanghai demain.

Adieu, le temps délectable!

Dr. Zhu Lei, one of the most respectable graduates of we College of English Language and Literature, is prophesied by "Dr." James Gao to be a most outstanding linguistist in ten year's time. It is to be the one and the only correct prediction made by "Dr." Gao, a rodomontade "philosopher" who teaches Nietzschean Philosophy and Twelve Lectures on Eastern and Western Culture. He is liable to preach down every exotica and eccentricity, and regard himself as the light, the great beacon of hope(if not God Almighty Himself). This supercilious "Savior", PhD of Fudan University, asserted one of his famous prophecies that a new tye of religion would emerge in China in no more than 50 years' time. What would it be? Gaoism? Just let's wait and see.

Let me pull your mind back from my digression about "Dr." James Gao. The endowed talent for language possessed by Dr. Zhu Lei is what I want to talk about. Dr. Zhu is the instructor of our Oral English Course in the second semester of our freshperson year. No one had ever realized what a genius he was the moment this fair and shy gentleman stepped into our classroom. In the next one and half an hour, on the topic of "To Appreciate the Beauty of Language", he showed(but not show off to) us how he could miraculously(to my thinking) speak around ten different foreign languages: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Arabian, Persian...... Thereafter he became the subject of those many anecdotes of Shanghai International Studies University, and the idol of a considerable number of students. Later I learned that he took the course of Comparative Linguistics for his PhD program. One of the conception I came up with was: one wouldn't be able to compare languages without having a good command of a correspondingly large number of languages, and this course was for geniuses only.

Whether this conception is true or only plausible, it must be a super feeling to be a commander of so many foreign languages. But many may find themselves uncapable of striking a balance between each, however ambitious they were. I, miserably, seem to be falling into this category.

I major in English Language and Literature, and one of my wildest ambitions is to master English, Deutsch, français, italiano and Espaňol before I become a PhD. But it now becomes a huge burden on my language studies. I actually was launching an unrealizable mission.

I take Deutsch as my second foreigh language, and français as my minor course. The first trilingual semester proved successful. I earned 95 pts for English, 93 pts for Deutsch and 95 pts for français. Nevertheless, a language usually develops complicated in grammar as you dig deeper. Moreover, the scattered knowlege of the gender, number and case of many strangely-spelt vocabularies(vocabulaires, Volkabeln) haunts me enormously, let alone listening and speaking.

Maybe I had made a mistake to take Deutsch, maybe it should have been Espaňol. Deutsch is by no means associated with français, nor English, in spite of the seemingly encouraging fact that both English and Deutsch belong to the Teutonic Language Family. But Espaňol is more closely related to français, as regards vocabulary and grammar. According to Ms. Zhu Sha, my instructor of French Intensive Reading Course, some dialects in France sound roughly the same as Espaňol. But how could I have been that insane as to have selected Deutsch as my second foreign language?

Man proposes, God disposes.

Keep up with studies of English, Deutsch, français, God bless!

Will I become a lunatic? Quizás, quizás, quizás. (Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.)

May God bless Rachel, who has had a torturing day today, and may He watches over me, who is still being tortured.

Good night, and good luck.

 

Raying-moribund-poisson.

I wrote for my beloved this sonnet on a certain Valentine's Day. But from today on it is for nobody, and everyone is entitled to a free citation of this sonnet, should you think it is not so much of an excrement.

 

Will you be sending me a valentine
The day half one century from now
With the trueness I cannot decline
May it be our permanently-shared vow

 

The day your fairness grows pallider
And my shining eyes will not glitter
When all emerald leaves have decayed
On the tree under which we had a date

 

The day nothing ambient acquaints you
Our vow remains unchanged as fresh made
Only love is proved what never fades
By your side I accompany till the doom

 

The day I get old, losing my hair
Abidingly you solely come to my care

 

Wish every couple: Good night, and good luck.

 

Raying-weeping-poisson

The Beatles

 

There’re places I remember,

All my life, though some have changed.
Some for forever, not for better,

Some have gone, and some remain.
All these places have their moments,

With lovers and friends I still can recall.
Some are dead, and some are living,

In my life, I've loved them all.

But of all these friends and lovers,

There’s no one compares with you.
And these memories lose their meaning,

When I think of love as something new.
Though I know I’ll never lose affection,

For people and things that went before.
I know I’ll often stop to think about them,

In my life, I love you more.

 

Though I know I’ll never lose affection,

For people and things that went before,
I know I’ll often stop to think about them.

In my life, I love you more.

 

In my life, I love you more.

 

I drew inspiration of the name for my space from Beatles' title-striking song In My Life. Having heard it or not, you can feel a sentimental recollection of their golden age, as well as everything that once composed that period of gilded memory. And palpably it will dawn on you that bygones prove exceedingly cherishable when you try to recall them, without any hope of their being recherché. Nevertheless, you should at least be grateful for your still have them in reminiscence.
All this being said, as a birthday present overdue for myself, and for bidding to Ben my sincerest wishes for un bon voyage, to Singapore, and later to Sichuan, but seemingly never to my here……

 

Raying-weeping-poisson