《红楼梦》英译对照欣赏

Y：Yang Xianyi

　　H：David Hawkes

　　37、世事洞明皆学问，人情练达即文章．

　　Y: A grasp of mundane affairs is genuine knowledge; Understanding of worldly wisdom is true learning.

　　H: True learning implies a clear insight into human activities; Genuine culture involves the skilful manipulation of human relations.

　　38、嫩寒锁梦因春冷，芳气笼人是酒香。

　　Y: Coolness wraps her dream, for spring is chill; A fragrance assails men, the aroma of wine.

　　H: The coldness of spring has imprisoned the soft buds in a wintry dream; The fragrance of wine has intoxicated the beholder with imagined flower-scents.

　　39、春梦随云散，飞花逐水流；寄言众儿女，何必觅闲愁。

　　Y: Gone with clouds spring's dream, Flowers drift away on the stream. Young lovers all, be warned by me, Cease courting needless misery.

　　H: Spring's dream-time will like drifting clouds disperse, Its flowers snatched by a flood none can reverse. Then tell each nymph and swain, 'Tis folly to invite love's pain!

　　40、厚地高天，堪叹古今情不尽；痴男怨女，可怜风月债难偿。

　　Y: Firm as earth and lofty as heaven, passion from time immemorial knows no end; Pity silly lads and plaintive maids hard put to it to requite debts of breeze and moonlight.

　　H: Ancient earth and sky

　　Marvel that love's passion should outlast all time.

　　Star-crossed men and maids

　　Groan that love's debts should be so hard to pay.

　　41、春恨秋悲皆自惹，花容月貌为谁妍。

　　Y: They brought on themselves spring grief and autumn anguish; Wasted, their beauty fair as flowers and moon.

　　H: Spring griefs and autumn sorrows were by yourselves provoked.

　　Flower faces, moonlight beauty were to what end disclosed?

　　42、宝玉听如此说，便吓得欲退不能退，果觉自形污*不堪。

　　Y: Pao-yu started at that and wished he could slip away, feeling intolerably gross and filthy.

　　H: At these words Bao-yu was suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of the uncleanness and impurity of his own body and sought in vain for somewhere to escape to.

　　43、幽微灵秀地，无可奈何天。

　　Y: Spiritual, secluded retreat, Celestial world of sweet longing.

　　H: Earth's choicest spirits in the dark lie hid: Heaven ineluctably enforced their fate.

　　44、〔枉凝眉〕一个是阆苑仙葩，一个是美玉无瑕。若说没奇缘，今生偏又遇着他；若说有奇缘，如何心事终虚化﹖一个枉自嗟呀，一个空劳牵挂。一个是水中月，一个是镜中花。想眼中能有多少泪珠儿，怎经得秋流到冬尽，春流到夏！

　　Y: VAIN LONGING:

　　One is an immortal flower of fairyland,

　　The other fair flawless jade,

　　And were it not predestined,

　　Why should they meet again in this existence?

　　Yet, if predestined,

　　Why does their love come to nothing?

　　One sighs to no purpose,

　　The other yearns in vain;

　　One is the moon reflected in the water,

　　The other but a flower in the mirror.

　　How many tears can well from her eyes?

　　Can they flow on from autumn till winter,

　　From spring till summer?

　　H: HOPE BETRAYED:

　　One was a flower from paradise,

　　One a pure jade without spot or stain.

　　If each of the other one was not intended,

　　Then why in this life did they meet again?

　　And yet if fate had meant them for each other,

　　why was their earthly meeting all in vain?

　　In vain were all his anxious fears:

　　All, insubstantial, doomed to pass,

　　As moonlight mirrored in the water

　　Or flowers reflected in a glass.

　　How many tears from those poor eyes could flow,

　　Which every season rained upon her woe?

　　45、〔世难容〕气质美如兰，才华阜比仙。天生成孤癖人皆罕。你道是啖肉食腥膻，视绮罗俗厌；却不知太高人愈妒，过洁世同嫌。可叹这，青灯古殿人将老；辜负了，红粉朱楼春色阑。到头来，依旧是风尘骯脏违心愿。好一似，无瑕白玉遭泥陷；又何须，王孙公子叹无缘。

　　Y: SPURNED BY THE WORLD:

　　By nature fair as an orchid,

　　With talents to match an immortal,

　　Yet so eccentric that all marvel at her.

　　To her, rich food stinks.

　　Silken raiment is vulgar and loathsome;

　　She knows not that superiority fosters hatred,

　　For the world despised too much purity.

　　By the dim light of an old shrine she will fade away,

　　Her powder and red chamber, her youth and beauty wasted,

　　To end, despite herself, defiled on the dusty road——

　　Even as flawless white jade dropped in the mud.

　　In vain young scions of noble house will sigh for her.

　　H: ALL AT ODDS:

　　Heaven made you like a flower,

　　With grace and wit to match the gods,

　　Adding a strange, contrary nature

　　That set you with the rest at odds.

　　Nauseous to you the world's rank diet,

　　Vulgar its fashion's gaudy dress:

　　But the world envies the superior

　　And hates a too precious daintiness.

　　Sad it seemed that your life should in dim-lit shrines be wasted,

　　All the sweets of spring untasted:

　　Yet, at the last,

　　Down into mud and shame your hopes were cast,

　　Like a white, flawless jade dropped in the muck,

　　Where only wealthy rakes might bless their luck.

　　46、：尘世中多少富贵之家，那些绿窗风月，绣阁烟霞，皆被*污纨□与那些流荡女子悉皆玷辱。更可恨者，自古来多少轻薄浪子，皆以“好色不*”为饰，又以“情而不*”作案，此皆饰非掩丑之语也。好色即*，知情更*。是以巫山之会，云雨之欢，皆由既悦其色、复恋其情所致也。吾所爱汝者，乃天下古今第一*人也。

　　Y: In your dusty world, countless green-windowed chambers and embroidered boudoirs of rich and noble families are desecrated by amorous men and loose women. Worse still, all dissolute wretches since ancient times have drawn a distinction between love of beauty and carnal desire, between love and lust, so as to gloss over their immorality. love of beauty leads to lust, and desire even more so. Thus every sexual transport of cloud and rain is the inevitable climax of love of beauty and desire.

　　And what I like about you is that you are the most lustful man ever to have lived in this world since time immemorial.

　　H: In the rich and noble households of your mortal world, too many of those bowers and boudoirs where innocent tenderness and sweet girlish fantasy should reign are injuriously defiled by coarse young voluptuaries and loose, wanton girls. And what is even more detestable, there are always any number of worthless philanderers to protest that it is woman's beauty alone that inspires them, or loving feelings alone, unsullied by any taint of lust. They lie in their teeth! To be moved by woman's beauty is itself a kind of lust. To experience loving feelings is, even more assuredly, a kind of lust. Every act of love, every carnal congress of the sexes is brought about precisely because sensual delight in beauty has kindled the feeling of love.

　　The reason I like you so much is because you are full of lust. You are the most lustful person I have ever known in the whole world.

　　47、「意*」二字，惟心会而不可口传，可神通而不可语达。

　　Y: “Lust of the mind”, this can be grasped by the mind but not expressed, apprehended intuitively but not described in words.

　　H: “Lust of the mind” cannot be explained in words, nor, if it could, would you be able to grasp their meaning. Either you know what it means or you don't.

　　48、一场幽梦同谁近，千古情人独我痴。

　　Y: Strange encounters take place in a secret dream, For he is the most passionate lover of all time.

　　49、宝玉亦素喜袭人柔媚娇俏，遂强袭人同领警幻所训云雨之事。袭人素知贾母已将自己与了宝玉的，今便如此，亦不为越礼，遂和宝玉偷试一番，幸得无人撞见。

　　Y: Since Pao-yu had long been attracted by His-jen's gentle, coquettish ways, he urged her to carry out the instructions with him; and as she knew that the Lady Dowager had given her to Pao-yu she felt this would not be an undue liberty. So they tried it out secretly together, and luckily they were not discovered.

　　H: Bao-yu had long been attracted by Aroma's somewhat coquettish charms and tugged at her purposefully, anxious to share with her the lesson he had learned from Disenchantment. Aroma knew that when Grandmother Jia gave her to Bao-yu she had intended her to belong to him in the fullest possible sense, and so, having no good reason for refusing him, she allowed him, after a certain amount of coy resistance, to have his way with her.