中國文學(xué)英譯絮談

沙楓

“黃河”還是“黃沙”？

黃河遠(yuǎn)上白云間，一片孤城萬仞山。
羌笛何須怨楊柳，春風(fēng)不度玉門關(guān)。

這是唐朝王之渙的一首《涼州詞》。Payne 的英譯這樣：

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.

吳經(jīng)熊的英譯是這樣：

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”譯作“The Great Wall”（萬里長城），是不當(dāng)?shù)摹?/p>

這是 Bynner 的英譯：

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.

一位林先生來信說：“黃河遠(yuǎn)上白云間”英譯，論及這句應(yīng)為“黃沙直上白云間”，并引竺可楨《物候?qū)W》一書為證。爰據(jù)此說，另譯如下：

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.

竺可楨、宛敏渭合著的《物候?qū)W》一書，也這樣說：

也有一些原來不錯(cuò)的詩句，被后人改錯(cuò)了。如王之渙《涼州詞》：“黃河遠(yuǎn)上白云間，一片孤城萬仞山。羌笛何須怨楊柳，春風(fēng)不度玉門關(guān)?！边@是很合乎涼州以西玉門關(guān)一帶春天情況的。和王之渙同時(shí)而齊名的詩人王昌齡，有一首《從軍行》詩：“青海長云暗雪山，孤城遙望玉門關(guān)。黃沙百戰(zhàn)穿金甲，不破樓蘭終不還！”也是把玉門關(guān)和黃沙聯(lián)系起來。在唐朝開元時(shí)代的詩人，對于玉門關(guān)一帶情況比較熟悉，他們知道玉門關(guān)一帶到春天幾乎每天到日中要刮風(fēng)起黃沙，直沖云霄。但后來不知何時(shí)，王之渙《涼州詞》第一句便被改成“黃河遠(yuǎn)上白云間”。到如今，書店流行的唐詩選本，統(tǒng)沿用改過的句子。實(shí)際黃河和涼州及玉門關(guān)談不上有什么關(guān)系，這樣一改，便使這句詩與河西走廊的地理和物候兩不對頭。

王昌齡這首《從軍行》，有 Wang Sheng-chih 的英譯如下：

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.

在喻守真編注的《唐詩三百首詳析》中，第一句是作“黃沙直上白云間”，并在注解中說“此句是寫風(fēng)卷黃沙直上云中之境，一本作‘黃河’，特殊費(fèi)解。”

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