《湖心亭看雪》中“雾凇沆砀”怎样翻译成英文?

《湖心亭看雪》中“雾凇沆砀”怎样翻译成英文?

好问题。提供一些思路,希望对题主有启发。

此句第一个难点在“雾凇”这种自然景观的所传达的特殊动静美感:巨大的湖面宁静非常,而上有阵阵白雾掠过,一静一动,以动衬静。

对这种动静感写的最好的是Carl Sandburg。他的诗 Fog 中以猫之脚步写雾掠过时候的安静与灵动:

The fog comes on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

若想更直白地写雾的动态,可以参考Conrad Aiken写冬雾所用的动词:

The white fog creeps from the cold sea over the city, over the pale grey tumbled towers, and settles among the roofs, the pale grey walls.

Along damp sinuous streets it crawls, curls like a dream among the motionless trees, and seems to freeze.

The fog slips ghost-like into a thousand rooms, whirls over sleeping faces, spins in an atomy dance round misty street lamps; and blows in cloudy waves over open spaces.

此句的第二个难点在于对“沆砀”色彩、质地的理解。冰湖剔透,雾气弥漫,一个清明一个朦胧,这是色彩上的暧昧。湖面寒光砭人肌骨,用词宜峻峭,而雪雾质地细软轻薄,又不宜下厉笔刻画,这是柔与肃的辩证。

对于清澈与迷茫、温柔与肃杀这种色空之间的幽微感处理的最好的是 Amy Clampitt:

A vagueness comes over everything,

As though proving color and contour alike dispensable:

The lighthouse extinct,

The islands' spruce-tips drunk up like milk in the universal emulsion;

Houses reverting into the lost and forgotten;

Granite subsumed,

A rumor in a mumble of ocean.

尤其是末尾这句,"a rumor in a mumble of ocean"(雾显雾隐,碎语低吟,流入涛声),以声写色,我格外喜欢。

如果想更直接写“沆砀”的色彩、质地,还可以参考Emma Lazarus的用词:

Light silken curtain, colorless and soft,

Dreamlike before me floating! what abides

Behind thy pearly veil's

Opaque, mysterious woof?

Bring sweet assurance of continuous life

Beyond this silvery cloud.

Fantastic dreams,

Of tissue subtler still

Than the wreathed fog, arise,

And cheat my brain with airy vanishings

And mystic glories of the world beyond.

一点想法,供参考。