赏析蝴蝶梦翻译

赏析《蝴蝶梦》（Rebecca）简写本景色描写翻译

《蝴蝶梦》（Rebecca）是英国女作家达夫妮·杜穆里埃(Daphne du Maurier)的成名作品，甚至被视为与《简爱》齐名。我手中的这一版为：

原著：Daphne du Maurier

改写：A.S.M.Ronaldson

翻译：刘保山

中英对照中，可以看出译者对于原稿的把握与揣摩。对于中文阅读者来说，景物描写的理解一直是英语作品的难点。在阅读英语作品中，我感到最易理解的是一些专业文章，因为在解决专业词汇后就可以大体把握文章要义。其次是新闻，除了词汇和句式外，往往作者态度和大义不难把握。作者的意图重在从中给予读者信息和观点。最难以理解的是小说，除了多种变化的形式外，作者往往有深意在其中，常常暗示给出，以不同的意向引领读者，给予读者一定的情感或情绪体验，对于非英语母语以及非英语文化下成长的中文阅读者，我觉得很难。

而《蝴蝶梦》是一起悬疑的气氛著名。读这个故事，会明显感受到那种作者所描绘的阴霾，压抑的气氛。而这些气氛的展现，除了主角的心理变化，或者少之又少的直接描写外，剩下的就是大量的侧面烘托，其中，最为重要的，也是给我印象最深的，就是景物的描写。读这本故事时年纪还比较小，但读过之后仿佛亲身经历过曼德利庄园的美景或者是最压抑的环境一般。可见刘保山先生的考究和传神。

1. Last night I dreamt that I went to Manderley again. It seemed to that I was going in by the iron entrance gates. The private road was just a narrow ribbon now, its stony surface covered with grass and weeds. Sometimes, when I thought it lost, it would appear again, beneath a fallen tree or beyond a muddy ditch made by the winter rains, the trees had thrown out new branches which stretched across my way. I came upon the house suddenly, and stood there with my heart beating fast and tears coming to my eyes.

（翻译：昨天夜里，我梦见又回到了曼德利。我仿佛是从那扇大铁门进去的。如今车道像条狭窄的带子，石砌路面长满野草。有时，我以为小道已到尽头，它却又从倒在地上的树底钻了出来，或从冬雨积成的泥泞小沟那头出现了。树木已新抽低枝，挡住我的去路。突然我又来到住宅前面，站在那里，心怦怦地跳，两眼热泪盈眶。）这是全书第一段，作为开始，气氛就已经开始烘托，而翻译也很简洁。“I dreamt that I went”，翻译是省略了重复出现的代词，一个主语掌管全句。“It seemed to that ”译者译为“我仿佛…”，去掉了It这个形式主语。而像“now”这样的词，不是译为“现在”，而是翻译为“如今”这类较为文学性的词汇。

这一段文字是被人称颂多年的。只要看过《蝴蝶梦》的人，就会朗诵第一句，“昨天夜里，我梦见又回到了曼德利”。在译文中，译者的用词很斟酌，用的词语没有过分华丽，但是却整合在一起很流畅地表达了原文的基调和笔锋。所以在读过译文多年后接触原文，有一种自然而然的熟悉感，可以很自如地把握原文的行文。

2. There was Manderley, our Manderley, secret and silent as it had always been, the grey stone shining in the moonlight of my dream. Time could not spoil the beauty of those walls, nor the place itself, lying like a jewel in the hollow of a hand. The grass sloped down towards the sea, which was sheet of silver lying calm under the moon, like a lake undisturbed by wind or storm. I turned again to the house, and I saw that the garden had run wild, even as the woods

had done.

（翻译：这就是曼德利，我们的曼德利，还是那样神秘而幽静。灰白色的砖石在梦境的月光里闪闪发光。时光的流逝，丝毫无损于围墙的完美，也无损于宅邸本身，它宛如托在掌心的一颗宝石。草地斜伸，直达海边，月光下一片银色的海水，寂然无波，犹如风平浪静时的湖面。我又转身面向宅邸。我发现，花园和树林子一样，完全荒芜了。）作者的梦境在深入。而对于梦中场景的描写虽然用词简单，但是却不易理解，如“Time could not spoil the beauty of those walls”，“in the hollow of a hand”，“sloped down”。译者用了很诗化的语风来处理看似简单的句子。而“草地斜伸，直达海边，月光下一批啊银色的海水，寂然无波，犹如风平浪静时的湖面”这一个句子中，原文从句分词逻辑紧密，译入汉语时，译者拆开了从句，符合汉语里逻辑稍松的习惯，并且“calm”一词单独译为了一个分句，着重强调了寂静的气氛。像这类将一个较长的，用关联词连接着不同从句的长句，译者常常把它们按照逻辑拆开，顺接关系的常常省去了连接词，使它们在汉语中看着比较自然。除了上述一例外，还有“the trees had thrown out new branches which stretched across my way”，译者将其译为“树木已新抽低枝，挡住我的去路”。

3. Weeds were everywhere. But moon light can play strange tricks with the fancy, even with a dreamer’s fancy. As I stood there, quiet and still, I could swear that the house was not an empty shell but lived and breathed as it had lived before. Light came from the windows, the curtains blew softly in the night air, and there, in the library, the door would stand half open as we had left it, with my handkerchief on the table beside the bowl of autumn flowers.

（翻译：到处杂草丛生。可是月光能给人们造成奇异的幻觉，甚至对梦中人也不例外。当我平静地站在那里时，竟断定宅子不是一座空壳，它还是像从前那样，有生命，能呼吸。窗户里透出灯光，窗帘在夜风中微微飘拂；书房的门还像我们离开时那样半开着；我的手绢还留在桌子上那盆秋花的旁边。）

“But moon light can play strange tricks with the fancy, even with a dreamer’s fancy”这一句的处理是我很喜欢的一处。在阅读原文时，在这里我稍稍停顿了一下，想弄清作者到底想传达一种什么感觉，原文中对月光有一定拟人化的成分，而fancy在辞书中的意思又比较生硬，如果我是一位译者，在这里可能会显出我对这里的难以把握。而译者很完美地传达了这一句的含义，语调，也同样的，相当富有美感。“even with a dreamer’s fancy”的翻译上，调整了语序，也把介词很恰当得表达出来，是一个得当的意译。

4. Then a cloud came over the moon, like a dark hand before a face. The strange feeling went.

I looked again upon an empty shell, with no whisper of the past about it. Our fear and suffering were dead. When I thought about Manderley in my waking hours I would not be bitter. I would think of it as it might have been, if I could have lived there without fear. I would remember the flower gardens in the summer, and the birds that sang there, tea under the trees, and the sound of the sea coming up to us from the shore below. I would think of the blown flowers from the bushes, in the Happy Valley.

（翻译：随后，一朵乌云盖住月亮，好像一只黑手遮住了脸庞。奇异的感觉过去了，我又看到一座空壳，它对往事缄默不语。我们的忧虑和苦难早已消失了。醒着的时候想到曼德利，我不再感到辛酸。要是我能在那儿无忧无虑地生活，我就会以通常的态度来看待它了。我就会记起夏日的花园，园中的鸟语，树底下的茶点，从下方岸边传来的阵阵海涛声。我会想起幸福谷树丛中盛开的鲜花。）