原创： 王昌玲 译诗 今天

主持人

王如利（Wang Ruli）

丁立群（Ding Liqun）

Introduction

“佳节又重阳”！重阳节是与亲朋欢聚宴饮、秋游赏菊、佩插茱萸、登高祈福的日子。“每逢佳节倍思亲”，孤旅独居之人在这一天不免会平添一缕思亲的愁绪。李清照的《醉花阴》正是这样一首令人销魂的重阳怀人之作。本期《华章英韵》隆重推出王昌玲老师对这首佳人佳作的佳译，诚邀各位亲爱的读者共同欣赏！

"Double Ninth Festival anew!" Chinese peple usually get together with family and friends to celebrate this festival by feasting, drinking, watching chrysanthemums, wearing cornels, and climbing mountains to pray for blessings. Therefore, on this day of reunion, those travelling or living alone may pine for their beloved ones. "Tipsy Beneath Flower Shade" is just such a touching poem on the longing for a beloved one. This issue of Chinese Verse in English Rhyme presents to you, our dear readers, this beautiful poem of Li Qinzhao beautifully rendered by Ms. Wang Changling. Please enjoy it!

醉花阴--朗诵王如利

来自译诗

00:0002:06

醉花阴

(宋)李清照

 

薄雾浓云愁永昼，

瑞脑销金兽。

佳节又重阳，

玉枕纱橱，

半夜凉初透。

 

东篱把酒黄昏后，

有暗香盈袖。

莫道不销魂，

帘卷西风，

人比黄花瘦。

 

Tipsy Beneath Flower Shade

Written by Li Qingzhao (Of the Song Dynasty)

Translated by Wang Changling

 

The misty cloudy day1 prolonged my woe.

Burning incense failed to make it go.

Double Ninth Festival anew!

On the curtained bed the jade pillows chilly grow

In the dead of the night steeped in dew.

 

Beside the eastern hedge2 till dusk I wined,

Aware of subtle scent3 oozing slow.

Oh, how can I be free from rue?

West wind fluttered the portiere, only to find

A beauty thinner than petals4 pined!

 

Notes:

1. “The misty cloudy day” indicates the bad weather, which sets the tone for the speaker's mood: sorrow, loneness and longing for the company of the beloved.

2. “The eastern hedge” is an allusion to Tao Qian's verse: I pick mums beside th’ eastern hedge. “Beside the eastern hedge till dusk I wined” actually means that the speaker wined amid chrysanthemums to dispel her woe, but in vain, for the lack of the company of the beloved.

3.“Subtle scent” usually alludes to the faint fragrance of plum blossoms as versified by Lin Bu: Sparse shadows interlacing mirrored in pool clean; /Faint fragrance afloat in misty moonlight serene. Here, “subtle scent” refers to the aroma of chrysanthemums. Li Qingzhao may also allude to “A Rare Flowering Tree in the Courtyard” in Nineteen Old Poems: a young wife picked up a blossom, wishing to send it to her husband faraway, but realized that the great distance made it impossible. Li Qingzhao easily related to the young wife.

4. Originally, "mums", the shortened form of chrysanthemums was used in the place of “petals”. But the image of blooming mums has no visual connection with the image of a young lady with a slender figure. Besides, a full-blown chrysanthemum seems too sunny to indicate a person who has languished. The single petal of some type of chrysanthemum looks long and slender. Thus, petals are chosen to substitute mums. The happy coincidence is that "petals" and "pined" form an alliteration.    

The Translator’s Remarks

李清照《醉花阴》主题明确，相思写得含蓄细腻。全词用词简单，容易理解，但翻译起来却困难重重。难不在韵脚难寻，也不在长短句特色无以迻译，而在于动词时态的选择，以及句与句之间的语义逻辑关联一时难以确定。上阕一会儿写白天(愁永昼)，一会儿写夜晚(半夜凉初透)；下阕又写“把酒黄昏后”，时间线有点乱。多方查阅资料结合文本分析最后确定，说话人在重阳节当晚失眠，追叙白天的经历。译词以一般过去时作为基本时态，上阕最后两句用一般现在时译出。下阕“莫道不消魂”没有按照字面意思译为否定祈使句，而是利用反问表达说话人的心理活动，并与上阕“玉枕纱橱，半夜凉初透”的情绪及内心活动相呼应。

基本采用简化与明晰化的译法，并利用跨行诗，更好地实现语义逻辑关联。李清照天然喜好欧韵，比如《如梦令》(昨夜雨疏风骤，浓睡不消残酒。试问卷帘人，却道海棠依旧。知否？知否？应是绿肥红瘦。)。译词韵脚不是很工整，下阕中欧韵丧失以头韵弥补；上下阕对应行音节数相同，比较直观地体现了长短句的特色。

“Tipsy beneath Flower Shade” by Li Qingzhao is obviously themed on longing for one's beloved one, though the expression of the theme is subtle and allusive. With no difficult diction, the whole ci is easy to understand, yet it challenges translation. The difficulty of rendering the whole ci into English lies not in the preservation of the rhyme scheme, or the unequal length of the lines, but in the choice of the tense of the verbs as well as the semantic and logical connection between lines. For instance, the first stanza mentions daytime and nighttime and the second, dusk. The timeline is confusing. After checking different sources and thorough textual analysis, I came to an understanding: the speaker suffered from insomnia during the night of the Double Ninth Festival and narrated in flashback what she had done during the whole day. Thus, her daytime experience is narrated in the past tense and the present tense is applied to describe “the jade pillows grow chilly.” The negative imperative sentence in the second stanza is translated into a rhetorical question “Oh, how can I be free from rue?” to mimic the speaker's psychological activity, and to echo the feeling and psychological activity as implied in the first stanza: “the jade pillows chilly grow, / In the dead of the night.”

Simplification and explicitation are the two methods; enjambment is used for better semantic and logical coherence. Li Qingzhao seems addicted to the /ou/ rhyme. Here is another ci entiled “A Dreamy Strain” (What a nightful of gale and shower! /A sound sleep later, me still hung-over. /Rolling the portiere, my maid doth answer: /Crabapple trees still the same grow. /How thou not know? How thou not know? /Green plump, red shrunk, 'tis supposed so.). The pity is that the/ou/ rhyme is unable to apply to the whole ci in translation. The partial loss of the /ou/ rhyme is more or less compensated by several alliterations in the second stanza; the correspondent lines of the two stanzas are equally syllabled (10-9-8-12-9) for the purpose of giving a visual presentation of the formal characteristics of ancient Chinese ci. 

About The Translator

王昌玲，任职于安徽师范大学外国语学院，参与编写出版教材《高级英语教程》(2019)，发表文学评论及翻译批评论文10余篇；热爱翻译，有数篇汉语杂文英译作品在《中国翻译》、《英语学习》上发表，出版合译著数部:《心灵鸡汤·感恩青春》(2007, 英译汉)、《爱屋及邬——纪念邬达克绘画雕塑邀请展》(2016, 汉译英)、《邬达克——从班斯卡·比斯特里察到世界》(2017, 汉译英)、《风的长廊》（2019，汉译英）；一册地震绘本(英译汉)即将出版；两次获得韩素音翻译大赛汉译英之优秀奖(2009, 2018)，2010年首届海峡英语竞赛汉译英一等奖。座右铭: 我译，故我在。诗观：诗歌是灵魂的救赎。

Wang Changling teaches at the School of Foreign Studies, Anhui Normal University, who has co-compiled Advanced English Course (2019) and published around ten academic research papers about literature and translation. Much into translation, she has published several English versions of Chinese essays in Chinese Translators Journal and English Language Learning and co-translated several books: Be Grateful to Youth, Chicken Soup for the Soul (E/C, 2007), Love Home, Love Hudec: Painting and Sculpture Invitational Exhibition in Memory of L. E.Hudec (C/E, 2016) and Ladislav E. Hudec—From Banska Bystrica to the World (C/E, 2017), A Breezy Corridor of Life (C/E, 2019); besides, a picture book about earthquake (E/C) is going to press soon. She has been awarded twice for Excellent C/E Translation in Han Suyin Award for Young Translators (2009, 2018), and awarded the first prize for C/E Translationin the First Straits English Contest (2010). Her motto: I translate, therefore I am. To her, poetry is what redeems the soul.

《中外诗文翻译》

主 办：中诗网、译诗群

协 办：月印无心佛教文化平台“太原头条”、大家网、金融街电讯新媒体头条

总顾问 ：何功杰、李正栓、张智中、卓振英

总策划 ：周占林、宛城卧龙

名誉主编：周占林

主 编：王磊、释圣静

名誉副主编：王永纯、德肋撒.李

副主编 ：黄金珠、蔡铁勇

编 委：王如利、丁立群、晚枫、王琳、史潘荣、罗晓佳、赵直