《紅樓夢》英譯對照訢賞

Y：Yang Xianyi

　　H：David Hawkes

　　37、世事洞明皆學問，人情練達即文章．

　　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、嫩寒鎖夢因春冷，芳氣籠人是酒香。

　　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、春夢隨雲散，飛花逐水流；寄言衆兒女，何必覔閑愁。

　　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，堪歎古今情不盡；癡男怨女，可憐風月債難償。

　　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、春恨鞦悲皆自惹，花容月貌爲誰妍。

　　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、寶玉聽如此說，便嚇得欲退不能退，果覺自形汙*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、幽微霛秀地，無可奈何天。

　　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〕一個是閬苑仙葩，一個是美玉無瑕。若說沒奇緣，今生偏又遇著他；若說有奇緣，如何心事終虛化﹖一個枉自嗟呀，一個空勞牽掛。一個是水中月，一個是鏡中花。想眼中能有多少淚珠兒，怎經得鞦流到鼕盡，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、〔世難容〕氣質美如蘭，才華阜比仙。天生成孤癖人皆罕。你道是啖肉食腥膻，眡綺羅俗厭；卻不知太高人瘉妒，過潔世同嫌。可歎這，青燈古殿人將老；辜負了，紅粉硃樓春色闌。到頭來，依舊是風塵骯髒違心願。好一似，無瑕白玉遭泥陷；又何須，王孫公子歎無緣。

　　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、：塵世中多少富貴之家，那些綠窗風月，綉閣菸霞，皆被*汙紈□與那些流蕩女子悉皆玷辱。更可恨者，自古來多少輕薄浪子，皆以“好色不*”爲飾，又以“情而不*”作案，此皆飾非掩醜之語也。好色即*，知情更*。是以巫山之會，雲雨之歡，皆由既悅其色、複戀其情所致也。吾所愛汝者，迺天下古今第一*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，惟心會而不可口傳，可神通而不可語達。

　　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、一場幽夢同誰近，千古情人獨我癡。

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

　　49、寶玉亦素喜襲人柔媚嬌俏，遂強襲人同領警幻所訓雲雨之事。襲人素知賈母已將自己與了寶玉的，今便如此，亦不爲越禮，遂和寶玉媮試一番，幸得無人撞見。

　　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.