∷林巍 文／譯

原 文

[1] 人生固然有歡樂(lè)，但也一定不乏痛苦。有了這種認(rèn)識(shí)和思想準(zhǔn)備是非常必要的，因?yàn)檫@樣會(huì)使你的生活增加歡樂(lè)而減少痛苦。

[2] 鳥(niǎo)瞰人生，可略有領(lǐng)悟。上學(xué)時(shí)，有獲得知識(shí)的樂(lè)趣，便有做功課、考試、排名次的危機(jī)與痛苦。同時(shí)，也有同學(xué)間相處的融合與糾結(jié)。青年時(shí)，春心萌動(dòng)，幻想聯(lián)翩，難以實(shí)現(xiàn)，亦難免陷入困擾。

[3] 結(jié)婚之后，實(shí)際進(jìn)入了更多的矛盾之中；思想的落差、相處的困難、子女的教育、財(cái)物的爭(zhēng)執(zhí)等等，也會(huì)陷入婚姻危機(jī)。隨后，年齡愈大，健康愈差，事業(yè)、家庭中的許多潛在矛盾會(huì)日益突出，因而又會(huì)有中年危機(jī)和老年危機(jī)，直至步入死亡。

[4] 所以說(shuō)，人生在世，如意的事不足一二，不如意的則十有八九。但這“八九”不是負(fù)擔(dān)，而是有用的，因?yàn)槿嗽谕纯嘀兴鶎W(xué)到的，要比在歡樂(lè)中所學(xué)到的多得多。

[5]“自古歡愉釀糟糠，從來(lái)痛苦出杰作”。對(duì)此，司馬遷早在兩千多年前便有精彩論述：“蓋西伯拘而演《周易》；仲尼厄而作《春秋》；屈原放逐，乃賦《離、騷》；左丘失明，厥有《國(guó)語(yǔ)》；孫子臏腳，《兵法》修列；不韋遷蜀，世傳《呂覽》；韓非囚秦，《說(shuō)難》、《孤憤》；《詩(shī)》三百篇，大氐賢圣發(fā)憤之所為作也。此人皆意有所郁結(jié)，不得通其道，故述往事，思來(lái)者”。

[6] 所以，讓我們把人生每一階段上的痛苦，都當(dāng)做自己的寶貴財(cái)富吧。

譯 文

[1] There's no rose without a thorn. This thought is absolutely necessary to prepare you to experience less pain and more joy in your journey of life.

[2] With a bird’s-eye view, you may realize something meaningful. During your school years, while joyfully acquiring knowledge you are also under the pressure of homework, examinations, and ranking. You face crises and agony. Meanwhile, all sorts of intricate affairs may happen between you and your classmates. In your youth, puberty may fill you with unrealized desires and send you into deeper perplexity.

[3] Entering marriage, you are actually in the center of all the contradictions—the matching of different personalities, enduring of family members, children’s schooling, financial management and so on, you may also fall into marriage crisis. As you age, your health may deteriorate and various troubles in your career and family may gradually emerge. Mid-life and old-age crises will

[4] We may therefore conclude that much of our life may not be spent in contentment. However, the things that discontent are, in fact, not useless since you may learn more from them than from the things that cheered you up.

[5] As the saying goes, “It seems to be a perpetual rule that flops are produced elatedly and masterpieces painstakingly”. To put it vividly, the great historian Sima Qian had a view even two thousand years ago:“When Emperor Wen of Zhou Dynasty was arrested,he produced the classic Zhou Yi Jing; Confucius wrote the History of Spring and Autumn while he was experiencing adversity; Qu Quan produced his monumental long poem, On Encountering Sorrow,during his exile. When Zuo Qiu lost his sight and Sun Zi had his feet chopped off, they edited their writings and stratagems. After Lü Buwei was forced to live in Shu, the valuable The Book of Lü was fortunately handed down to posterity. Similarly, when Han Feizi was imprisoned in Qin,On Diff i culty and On Resentment—two precious books—were written by him. Three hundred Classic Poems were also produced in roughly the same way, where the writers’ hearts were smouldering in the doldrums with no way out: they therefore conveyed everything in words, narrating the past and contemplating the future”.

[6] Let’s treat all the sufferings at every stage of life as assets which can only do us good.

譯 注

在[1]中，“人生固然有歡樂(lè)，但也一定不乏痛苦”，未按其字面意思譯成 While life has happiness,it certainly has painfulness, 而引用了英文的諺語(yǔ)T h e r e's no rose without a thorn，更為簡(jiǎn)練而生動(dòng)?！斑@種認(rèn)識(shí)和思想準(zhǔn)備是非常必要的……”，其中的“認(rèn)識(shí)”似可為cognition，意為the mental process or faculty of knowing, including aspects such as awareness, perception, reasoning,and judgment（思想過(guò)程或認(rèn)識(shí)才能，包括意識(shí)、知覺(jué)、推理和判斷等），而“思想”為 thought， 其意為the act or process of thinking or cogitation（思考的行為或過(guò)程，亦或思索），在此，二者的英文意思不免有重復(fù)之處，故可將其合并thought；同時(shí)，將“準(zhǔn)備”譯為動(dòng)詞prepare，整句為T(mén)his thought is absolutely necessary to prepare you to... 因這里是講人生，故將“生活”擴(kuò)展為your journey of life；類似的英文表述有很多，如：On your journey of life, everything may turn old, only years remaining fresh.（你的生命旅途上，一切都變得陳舊，只有歲月常新）；Please follow these rules to make the journey of your life a journey of joy.（那就請(qǐng)你遵循這些原則，讓你的生活旅途充滿歡樂(lè)吧）；As you continue your journey on this stage of life, we hope that you too will try new steps and find the strength and courage to carry on the dance of life! （當(dāng)您在生命舞臺(tái)奮斗的時(shí)候，我們希望您找尋生命之舞的勇氣和力量，走好人生的每一步！）等。同時(shí)，有許多詩(shī)歌和文章都以此為主題，如：The journey of life is like a bus trip / We all know that a bus trip has its origin and its final destination. But what we cannot predict are the experiences along the way / Some people have longer journeys, while others have shorter ones / Some people are very relaxed and they can enjoy the scenery as it rolls by / Some are always crowded and must push and struggle for room,always feeling disconcerted...（人生，就像坐一輛公交車(chē) / 我們知道它有起點(diǎn)和終點(diǎn)，卻無(wú)法預(yù)知沿途的經(jīng)歷 /有的人行程長(zhǎng)，有的人行程短 / 有的人很從容，可以欣賞窗外的景色 / 有的人很窘迫，總處于推搡和擁擠之中……）等。

在[2]中，“鳥(niǎo)瞰人生，可略有領(lǐng)悟”，這里只取其“鳥(niǎo)瞰”之意：bird’seye view；“略有領(lǐng)悟”，something meaningful。將“……排名次的危機(jī)與痛苦”分為兩句處理：...and ranking. You face crises and agony，以示清晰。可見(jiàn)，在中譯英里，并不總是將短句合并為長(zhǎng)句，有時(shí)亦可相反?！啊盒拿葎?dòng)，幻想聯(lián)翩，難以實(shí)現(xiàn)，亦難免陷入困擾”，未作一一對(duì)譯，而是概括、綜述為：puberty may fill you with unrealized desires and send you into deeper perplexity.在翻譯中，這是化繁為簡(jiǎn)的方法，類似的如：“人無(wú)論多么復(fù)雜，都是一個(gè)有限系統(tǒng)，而認(rèn)識(shí)的對(duì)象——世界，卻是一個(gè)無(wú)限系統(tǒng)，這就要求人在信息處理方面要具有以簡(jiǎn)馭繁、以有限形式去容納無(wú)限內(nèi)容的能力”不妨譯為：No matter how complicated a human is as a system, the human system is a limited one compared with the unlimited world that he tries to understand. In handling the overwhelming information that human beings are confronted with,highly efficient approaches have thus been developed. 等。

在[3]中，“……實(shí)際進(jìn)入了更多的矛盾之中；思想的落差、相處的困難……”，其中“更多的矛盾”，未按字面意思譯成m o r e contradictions，而是為in the center of all the contradictions；“思想的落差”，這里指的是夫妻間性格的磨合，故為the matching of different personalities；“相處的困難”，也主要是指家庭成員之間的，故為enduring of family members?！澳挲g愈大”，將age用為動(dòng)詞，類似的有：As we age our appetite would slough.（隨著年齡的增長(zhǎng)，我們的食欲會(huì)減弱）；These buildings are aging, and some are unsafe now.（這些建筑已經(jīng)老化，有些不安全了）等。

“潛在矛盾會(huì)日益突出”，因emerge 已有顯露、呈現(xiàn)之意，故未將“潛在矛盾”譯成potential contradictions，而僅為various troubles。“中年危機(jī)和老年危機(jī)”，合譯為 mid-life and oldage crises，而（直至步入）“死亡”，未譯成通常的death, 而為諱語(yǔ)eternity；類似的有：We laid him to rest for all eternity.（我們安葬了他）；I want to be with you through eternity.（我愿來(lái)世與你同在）等。

在[4]中，“如意的事不足一二，不如意的則十有八九”，未按其字面意思譯為 in one’s life less than 10-20% of what one experiences is satisfactory, but over 80-90%isn’t，而是將其濃縮提煉，進(jìn)而概述為：much of our life may not be spent in contentment. 其中的contentment本義為T(mén)he state of being contented;satisfaction；如：In gerocomium,the old men spent his old age in contentment.（在敬老院老人們晚年過(guò)得很稱心）；She found great contentment in reading novels.（讀小說(shuō)使她得到極大滿足）等。

在[5]中，“自古歡愉釀糟糠，從來(lái)痛苦出杰作”實(shí)為諺語(yǔ)，故以As the saying goes啟始，而此句亦不宜死板對(duì)應(yīng)；“自古”、“從來(lái)”本為一意，故以perpetual述之， “糟糠”這里泛指不成功的藝術(shù)作品，難以具體落實(shí)，故用了 flop，其意為utter failure；“歡愉”則指得意洋洋與略帶輕浮，故用了副詞elatedly，意指exultantly proud and joyful。這也可說(shuō)是一種“互文”，如“論大功者不錄小過(guò)，舉大美者不疵細(xì)瑕”（《漢書(shū)·陳湯傳》），可合并而譯為：In evaluating one’s merits and virtue,his trivial faults and minor flaws should be neglected.

接下來(lái)司馬遷的論述精彩而富有文采，用詞錯(cuò)落有致，翻譯成英文時(shí)，亦應(yīng)盡力保持其原有風(fēng)格，但似乎又很難完全存其韻味。不妨將其分解為....was arrested,...while he was experiencing adversity; ...during his exile等，以求變化、不重復(fù)，又多少體現(xiàn)原文的韻律?！白笄鹗?，厥有《國(guó)語(yǔ)》；孫子臏腳，《兵法》修列”，兩句并列譯為 When Zuo Qiu lost his sight and Sun Zi had his feet chopped off, they edited their writings and stratagems，都試圖使譯文變化錯(cuò)落而不顯呆板。

在[6]中，“都當(dāng)做自己的寶貴財(cái)富”，可用...as assets加上which can only do us good以示強(qiáng)調(diào)。“Can do...good”，意為“對(duì)……有好處”，如Stop smoking now can only do you good.（現(xiàn)在戒煙，只會(huì)對(duì)你有好處）；One enemy can do more harm than ten friends do you good.（十個(gè)朋友對(duì)你做的好事，抵不上一個(gè)敵人造成的危害）等。