節奏 / Rhythm of Language

 

節奏 金雨田	Rhythm of Language By Jin Yu Tian
我說字幕，有同事誤會我反對翻譯劇。我本意是說翻譯劇有其先天的限制，一流譯筆一流導演一流演員都跨越不了。	TALKING of subtitles, I was taken for an opponent of translated drama.  Actually, I had meant to highlight the inherent limitations of drama in translation, a barrier insurmountable even for the best of translators, directors, or actors.
中國名演員李默然榮休前，我在廣州的旅店裡看電視，他以演莎劇著稱，間中回顧片段，我只能感慨：戴了假髮，他仍然是個中國人。	Li Moran, a celebrated actor in China, was about to retire when I was visiting the country. In the Guangzhou hotel, viewing a special TV programme with flashback clips from his acting career, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him –– despite the wig, the Shakespearean hero remained unmistakably a Chinese.
有一回在東京看能劇，團中有馬來與印尼記者，招待機構事先關照，可以中途離場。五個多小時的戲，我們是越看越入味，如果沒有字幕，如果換了一種語言，可能嗎？	Once I was watching a Japanese noh play in Tokyo with a group of fellow journalists, including Malay and Indonesian colleagues.  Our host had kindly granted us freedom to quit halfway, but the acting turned out to be so fascinating that everybody stayed enthralled throughout a good five hours of performance. Could that have been possible, I wonder, had the play been presented without subtitles or rendered in a language other than the original?
語言是文化的載體，語言是有節奏的，戲劇的性質是面對面，最具親和力，但也最脆弱，翻譯劇常常因語言節奏而削弱了這種親和力。	With its peculiar rhythm, a language conveys the charm of its culture that enables drama, a face-to-face art form, to breed human affinity most effectively.  Yet the genre is so vulnerable that the affinity gets impaired once the rhythm of language turns faulty, which often happens in a translated play.
這和文學翻譯不同，閱讀空間是想像空間，通過閱讀你可以想像一個李爾王，但却無法在臺下改變臺上的現狀。語言節奏是很微妙的，粵語連續劇配華語對白，總覺失味。在藝術波道看日本片和淡米爾片，雖然聽不懂，但那語言節奏傳送出來的感覺，就是舒服。	Literature in translation is a different case.  Reading creates a world for imagination –– the reader can visualise his own King Lear. The audience of a play, by contrast, have no choice but to accept the reality on the stage.  Hence the crucial power in the subtlety of rhythm. Therefore, a Cantonese sitcom would sound flat and flavourless once dubbed into Mandarin, whereas an original Japanese or Tamil movie on TV could well appeal to our sense and sensibility through the rhythm of a language we don’t understand.  That rhythm carries something pleasant to the ear –– and to the heart.   (Tr. Allen Zhuang)
原刊於新加坡《聯合早報》(2000)；後收入《不著地族 / A Lift-Off People》(潘正鐳著，Allen Zhuang 英譯；Singapore: All Publishing House, 2002)；曾貼於譯者早前的網誌 坡港英華 / SingaKong Chinese & English (2011-08-23)，今重貼於此。 【允許轉貼；請注明取自本網頁，並保留源文作者及譯者姓名。】

 

The Man and His Two Wives / 一夫兩妻

 

The Man and His Two Wives Aesop’s Fables	一夫兩妻 伊索寓言
THERE WAS once a time when a man was allowed more wives than one, and a middle-aged bachelor, who could be called neither young nor old, and whose hair was just beginning to turn gray, fell in love with two women at the same time and married them both. One was young and lively and wanted her husband to look youthful; the other was somewhat more advanced in age and was concerned that her husband look about the same age as she did. So, the young wife seized every opportunity to pull out all her dear husband’s gray hairs, while the older one zealously plucked out every black hair she could find. For a while the man was highly flattered by their attention and devotion until, one morning, he discovered that, thanks to his two wives, he did not have a hair left on his head.	從前某一時代，男人可不僅有一妻。某中年光棍，年齡可謂不老不少，頭髮正由深色轉白；同時愛戀兩女，遂一併娶來。 一女年少活潑，願夫君容貌青春；另一女已頗為老大，一心要男人貌似與己年齡相仿。於是少妻緊抓機會，要將心愛良人之灰白髮盡數擢去，而老妻則傾心盡力，每見其有一絲黑髮便挑出摘除。 男子兼享兩妻之照料關愛，一時大為自得；直至某日清晨，始覺多賴有此兩妻，自家頭上竟已毫髮不存。
Whoever allows his principles to be swayed by the influence and different needs of conflicting parties will end in having no principles at all.   [From Aesop’s Fables, Selected and Adapted by Jack Zipers, Penguin Books, 1996]	凡有人任由自身原則受多方勢力及不同需求所左右，卻不顧各方乃彼此牴觸，則其本人終將至於全無操守。   (Tr. Allen Zhuang )
本文曾貼於譯者早前的網誌 坡港英華 / SingaKong Chinese & English (2009-02-23)，今重貼於此。 【允許轉貼；請注明取自本網頁，並保留源文作者及譯者姓名。】