Web Excursions 2022-05-14
莎士比亚诗体重译集序
莎士比亚的作品不是枯燥的说教,而是能够给予读者或观众极大艺术享受的娱乐性创造物,往往具有明显的煽情效果,有意刺激人的欲望。
这种艺术取向当然不是纯粹为了娱乐而娱乐,掩藏在背后的是当时西方人强有力的人本主义精神,即用以人为本的价值观来对抗欧洲上千年来以神为本的宗教价值观。
重欲望、重娱乐的人本主义倾向明显对重神灵、重禁欲的神本主义产生了极大的挑战。
当然,莎士比亚的人本主义与中国古人所主张的人本主义有很大的区别。
要而言之,前者在相当大的程度上肯定了人的本能欲望或原始欲望的正当性,而后者则主要强调以人的仁爱为本规范人类社会秩序的高尚的道德要求。
二者都具有娱乐效果,但前者具有纵欲性或开放性娱乐效果,后者则具有节欲性或适度自律性娱乐效果。
换句话说,对于 16、17 世纪的西方人来说,莎士比亚的作品暗中契合了试图挣脱过分禁欲的宗教教义的约束而走向个性解放的千百万西方人的娱乐追求,因此,它会取得巨大成功是势所必然的。
1623 年版《莎士比亚全集》奠定莎士比亚崇拜传统。
这个版本即眼前译本所依据的皇家版《莎士比亚全集》(The RSC William Shakespeare: Complete Works, 2007)的主要内容。
该版本产生于莎士比亚去世的第七年。
莎士比亚的舞台同仁赫明奇(John Heminge)和康德尔(Henry Condell)整理出版了第一部莎士比亚戏剧集。
当时的大学者、大作家本·琼森为之题诗,诗中写道:“他非一代骚人,实属万古千秋。”这个调子奠定了莎士比亚偶像崇拜的传统。
而这个传统一旦形成,后人就难以反抗。
英国文学中的莎士比亚偶像崇拜传统已经形成了一种自我完善、自我调整、自我更新的机制。
至少近两百年来,莎士比亚的文学成就已被宣传成世界文学的顶峰。
注释处理问题。对于注释的处理:
翻译时,如果正文译文已经将英文版某注释的基本含义较准确地表达出来了,则该注释即可取消;
如果正文译文只是部分地将英文版对应注释的基本含义表达出来,则该注释可以视情况部分或全部保留;
如果注释本身存疑,可以在保留原注的情况下,加入译者的新注。但是所加内容务必有理有据。
翻译风格问题。
对于风格的处理:
在整体风格上,译文应该尽量逼肖原作整体风格,包括以诗体译诗体,以散体译散体;
版式风格亦尽量保留,例如页边行号数码,亦应在译文中保留,俾便读者索查原文;
在具体的文字传输处理上,通常应该注重汉译本身的文字魅力,增强汉译本的可读性。
不宜太白话,不宜太文言;文白用语,宜尽量自然得体。
句子不要太绕,注意汉语自身表达的句法结构,尤其是其逻辑表达方式。
意义的异化性不等于文字形式本身的异化性,因此要注意用汉语的归化性来传输、保留原作含义的异化性。
朱生豪先生的译本语言流畅、可读性强,但可惜不是诗体,有违原作形式。
当下译本是要在承传朱先生译本优点的基础上,根据新时代的读者审美趣味,取得新的进展。
梁实秋先生等的译本,在达意的准确性上,比朱译有所进步,也是我们应该吸纳的优点。
但是梁译文采不足,则须注意避其短。
方平先生等的译本,也把莎士比亚翻译往前推进了一步,在进行大规模诗体翻译方面作出了宝贵的尝试,但是离真正的诗体尚有距离。
此外,前此的所有译本对于莎士比亚原作的色情类用语都有程度不同的忽略,本套皇家版译本则尽力在此方面还原莎士比亚的本真状态(论述见后文)。
每种译本都有自己独特的东西。
真正的诗体译本
莎士比亚首先是一个诗人。莎士比亚的作品基本上都以诗体写成。
因此,要想尽可能还原本真的莎士比亚,就必须将莎士比亚作品翻译成为诗体而不是散文,这在莎学界已经成为共识。
但是紧接而来的问题是:什么叫诗体?或需要什么样的诗体?
按照我们的想法:
所谓诗体,首先是措辞上的诗味必须尽可能浓郁;
节奏上的诗味(包括分行)等要予以高度重视;
结合中国人的审美习惯,剧文可以押韵,也可以不押韵。
但不押韵的剧文首先要满足前两个要求。
具体说来,新时代提出了什么要求?简而言之,就是用真正的诗体翻译莎士比亚的诗体剧文。
这个任务,是朱生豪先生无法完成的。
朱先生说过,他在翻译莎士比亚作品时,“当然预备全部用散文译出,否则将要了我的命”。
显然,朱先生也考虑过用诗体来翻译莎士比亚著作的问题,但是他的结论是:第一,靠单独一个人用诗体翻译《莎士比亚全集》是办不到的,会因此累死;第二,他用散文翻译也是不得已的办法,因为只有这样他才有可能在有生之年完成《莎士比亚全集》的翻译工作。
将《莎士比亚全集》翻译成诗体比翻译成散文体要难得多。难到什么程度呢?和朱生豪先生的翻译进度比较一下就知道了。
朱先生翻译得最快的时候,一天可以翻译一万字。
为什么会这么快?朱先生才华过人,这当然是一个因素,但关键因素是:他是用散文翻译的。用真正的诗体就不一样了。
以笔者自己的体验,今日照样用散文翻译莎士比亚剧本,最快时也可达到每日一万字。
这是因为今日的译者有比以前更完备的注释本和众多的前辈汉译本作参考,至少在理解原著时,要比朱先生当年省力得多,所以翻译速度上最高达到一万字是不难的。
但是翻译成诗体就是另外一回事了。这比自己写诗还要难得多。
写诗是自己随意发挥,译诗则必须按照别人的意思发挥,等于是戴着镣铐跳舞。
笔者自己写诗,诗兴浓时,一天数百行都可以写得出来,但是翻译诗,一天只能是几十行,统计成字数,往往还不到一千字,最多只是朱生豪先生散文翻译速度的十分之一。
梁实秋先生翻译《莎士比亚全集》用的也是散文,但是也花了 37 年,如果要翻译成真正的诗体,那么至少得 370 年!由此可见,真正的诗体《莎士比亚全集》汉译本的诞生,有多么艰难。
翻译诗体分辨:不是分了行就是真正的诗
在白话诗盛行的时代,许多人只是简单地认定分了行的文字就是诗这个概念。
分行只是一个初级的现代诗要求,甚至不必是必然要求,因为有些称为诗的文字甚至连分行形式都没有。
不过,在莎士比亚作品的翻译上,要让译文具有诗体的特征,首先是必定要分行的,因为莎士比亚原作本身就有严格的分行形式。
但是译文按莎士比亚的方式分了行,只是达到了一个初级的低标准。莎士比亚的剧文读起来像不像诗,还大有讲究。
显然,一些译本翻译了莎士比亚的剧文,在行数上靠近莎士比亚原作,措辞也还流畅。
这些是不是就是理想的诗体莎士比亚译本呢?笔者认为,这还不够。
诗歌首先应该是一种精妙的语言艺术。同理,诗歌的翻译也就不得不首先表现为同类精妙的语言艺术。
若译者的语言平庸而无光彩,与原作的语言艺术程度差距太远,那就最多只是原诗含义的注释性文字,算不得真正的诗歌翻译。
何谓诗歌的语言艺术?无他,修辞造句、音韵格律一整套规矩而已。
艺术家的“自由”,得心应手之谓也。
诗歌既为语言艺术,自然就有一整套相应的语言艺术规则。
诗人应用这套规则时,一旦达到得心应手的程度,那就是达到了真正成熟的境界。
当然,规矩并非一点都不可打破,但只有能够将规矩使用到随心所欲而不逾矩的程度的人,才真正有资格去创立新规矩,丰富旧规矩。
但是,“同类”绝非“同样”。
因为,由于原作和译作使用的语言载体不一样,其各自产生的语言艺术规则和效果也就各有各的特点,大多不可同样复制、照搬。
所以译作的最高目标,是尽可能在译入语的语言艺术领域达到程度大致相近的语言艺术效果。
这种大致相近的艺术效果程度可叫作“最佳近似度”。
它实际上也就是一种翻译标准,只不过针对不同的文类,最佳近似度究竟在哪些因素方面可最佳程度地(并不一定是最大程度地)取得近似效果,不是一成不变的,而是具有高度的灵活性。
话与诗的关系:话不是诗
古人的口语本来就是白话,与现在的人说的口语是白话一个道理。
中国传统诗歌绝大多数是浅近的文言,但绝非口语、白话。
文言和诗歌的产生是低俗的口语进化到高雅、准确层次的标志。
话不是诗,诗是话的升华。话据说至少有几十万年的历史,而诗却只有几千年的历史。
约一百年前的白话诗运动却未免走向了极端,事实上是一种语言艺术方面的倒退行为。
针对莎士比亚戏剧诗的翻译对策
莎士比亚的剧文既然大多是格律诗,无论有韵无韵,它们都是诗,都有格律性。
因此在汉译中,我们就有必要显示出它具有格律性,而这种格律性就是诗性。
问题在于,格律性是附着在语言形式上的;语言改变了,附着其上的格律性也就大多会消失。
但是,原作的内在旋律是可以模仿的,只是音色变了。
原作的诗性是可以换个形式营造的,这就是利用汉语本身的语言特点营造出大略类似的语言艺术审美效果。
由于换了另外一种语言媒介,原作的语音美设计大多已经不能照搬、复制,甚至模拟了,那么我们就只好断然舍弃掉原作的许多语音美设计,而代之以译入语自身的语言艺术结构产生的语音美艺术设计。
当然,原作的某些语音美设计还是可以尝试模拟保留的,但在通常的情况下,大多数的语音美已经不可能传输或复制了。
利用汉语本身的语音审美特点来营造莎士比亚诗歌的汉译语音审美效果,是莎士比亚作品翻译的一个有效途径。
具体说来,这就涉及翻译莎士比亚戏剧作品时该如何处理:1)节奏;2)韵律;3)措辞。
在这三个方面,我们都可以适当借鉴利用中国古代词曲体的某些因素。
戏剧剧文中的诗行一般都不宜多用单调的律诗和绝句体式。
元明曲体由于要更好更灵活地满足抒情、叙事、论理等诸多需要,故借用发展了词的形式,但不是纯粹的词,而是融入了民间语汇。
莎士比亚剧文语言单位的参差不齐状态与中文词曲体句式的参差不齐状态正好有某种相互呼应的效果。
也许有人说,莎士比亚的剧文虽然是格律诗,但并不怎么押韵,因此汉诗翻译也就不必押韵。
原作的节奏效果是印欧语系语言本身的效果,换了一种语言,其效果就大多不能搬用了,所以我们只好利用汉语本身的优势来创造新的音乐美。
这种音乐美很难说是原作的音乐美,但是它毕竟能够满足一点:即诗体剧文应该具有诗歌应有的音乐美这个起码要求。
而汉译的押韵可以强化这种音乐美。
莎士比亚的剧文不押韵是由诸多因素造成的。
第一,属于印欧语系语言的英语在押韵方面存在先天的多音节不规则形式缺陷,导致押韵词汇范围相对较窄。
所以对于英国诗人来说,很苦于押韵难工;莎士比亚的许多押韵体诗,例如十四行诗,在押韵方面都不很工整。
其次,莎士比亚的剧文虽不押韵,却在节奏方面十分考究,这就弥补了音韵方面的不足。
第三,莎士比亚的剧文几乎绝大多数是诗行,对于剧作者来说,每部长达两三千行的诗行行都要押韵,这是一个极大的挑战,很难完成。
汉语的词汇及语音构成方式决定了它天生就是一种有利于押韵的艺术性语言。
汉语存在大量同韵字,押韵是一件很容易的事情。
汉语的语音音调变化也比莎士比亚使用的英语的音调变化空间大一倍以上。
汉语音调至少有四种(加上轻重变化可达六至八种),而英语的音调主要局限于轻重语调两种,所以存在于印欧语系文字诗歌中的频频押韵有时会产生的单调感,在汉语中会在很大程度上由于语调的多变而得到缓解。
追求一种过分散文化和过分格律化之间的妥协状态。
翻译突破:还原莎士比亚作品禁忌区域
许多西方学者认为,莎士比亚酷爱色情字眼,他的著作渗透着性描写、性暗示。
只要有机会,他就总会在字里行间,用上与性相联系的双关语。
西方人很早就搜罗莎士比亚著作的此类用语,编纂了莎士比亚淫秽用语词典。这类词典还不止一种。
1995 年,我又看到弗朗基·鲁宾斯坦(Frankie Rubinstein)等编纂了《莎士比亚性双关语释义词典》(A Dictionary of Shakespeare's Sexual Puns and Their Significance),厚达 372 页。
莎士比亚的作品固然不是通常意义上的淫秽作品,但是它的大量实际用语确实有很强的色情味。
这个极鲜明的特点恰恰被前此的所有汉译本故意掩盖或在无意中抹杀掉。
莎士比亚的所有汉译者,尤其是像朱生豪先生这样的译者,显然不愿意中国读者看到莎士比亚的文笔有非常泼辣的大量使用性相关脏话的特点。
这个特点多半都被巧妙地漏译或改译。
于是出现一种怪现象,莎士比亚著作中有些大段的篇章变成汉语后,尽管读起来是通顺的,读者对这些话语却往往感到莫名其妙。
以《罗密欧与朱丽叶》第一幕第一场前面的 30 行台词为例,这是凯普莱特家两个仆人山普孙与葛莱古里之间的淫秽对话。
但是,读者阅读过去的汉译本时,很难看到他们是在说淫秽的脏话,甚至会认为这些对话只是仆人之间的胡话,没有什么意义。
我们认为,前此的译本依据各自所处时代的中国人道德价值的接受状态,采用了相应的翻译对策,出现了某种程度的曲译,这是可以理解的,是特定历史条件下的产物。
但是,历史在前进,中国人的道德观已经有了很大的改变,尤其是在性禁忌领域。
说实话,无论我们怎样真实地还原莎士比亚著作中的性双关描写,比起当代文学作品中有时无所忌讳的淫秽描写来,莎士比亚还真是有小巫见大巫的感觉。
译法示例
莎士比亚作品的文字具有多种风格,早期的、中期的和晚期的语言风格有明显区别,悲剧、喜剧、历史剧、十四行诗的语言风格也有区别。
甚至同样是悲剧或喜剧,莎士比亚的语言风格往往也会很不相同。
比如同样是属于悲剧,《罗密欧与朱丽叶》剧文中就常常有押韵的段落,而大悲剧《李尔王》却很少押韵;同样是喜剧,《威尼斯商人》是格律素体诗,而《温莎的风流娘儿们》却大多是散文体。
概括说来,我们的多种翻译风格主要包括
有韵体诗词曲风味译法:注意使用一些传统诗词曲中诗味比较浓郁的词汇,同时注意遣词不偏僻,节奏比较明快,音韵也比较和谐。但是,它们并不是严格意义上的传统诗词曲,只是带点诗词曲的风味而已。
有韵体现代文白融合译法:基本押韵,措辞上白话与文言尽量能够水乳交融;充分利用诗歌的现代节奏感,俾便能够念起来朗朗上口。
无韵体白话诗译法:虽然不押韵,但是译文有很明显的和谐节奏,措辞畅达,有诗味,明显不是普通的口语。
Butt Lifts Are Booming. Healing Is No Joke.
Brazilian butt lift in 2020 — a complex surgery
in which fat is liposuctioned from the abdomen or lower back or other fleshy parts
and used to enlarge and shape the buttocks
on Instagram [there is] a world of recovery houses —
many of them decorated in a millennial pink, hyperfeminine aesthetic —
where [the patient] would be healing alongside other women who had just gone through the same procedure
and would be cared for by a team of women who would cook for her, dress her wounds and monitor her progress
until she was well enough to catch a flight back home
Countless recovery houses have cropped up in Miami, which has become the heartbeat of the B.B.L. boom in the United States.
The average price of a B.B.L. nationwide is around $5,000
Dr. Angelo Cuzalina, a cosmetic surgeon in Tulsa, Okla., estimated the cost of the procedure in which patients receive high-quality care to range from $6,000 to $15,000.
Patients in Miami can get the butt-enhancing procedure for well below that price, however, and many choose to spend the money saved on additional procedures like liposuction in the arms or thighs.
In 2021, there were 61,387 buttock augmentations, which include both implants and fat grafting
It’s called the Brazilian butt lift, not because it was necessarily invented in Brazil, but you think of Brazilian women having like, you know, perky butts, bigger butts.
For Black women, many of whom have always possessed a version of the B.B.L. body,
it is difficult to square this popularity with the fact that their natural bodies have been denigrated for generations.
When the modern beauty standard embraced a more exaggerated hourglass shape — a microscopic waist eclipsed by a large, round bottom —
butt-augmentation surgeries that help women achieve this look were propelled into the mainstream.
Evidence of the B.B.L. is ubiquitous on social media;
there are even surgical offshoots (read: the “skinny B.B.L.”)
for folks who want a more natural-looking but still noticeable plumping.
And in many ways the idealized body, one that was considered unattainable for anyone other than celebrities, is now, technically, possible for everyday women to achieve.
And Black women aren’t immune to wanting a seemingly quick way of acquiring the figure that defines desire today.
Most recovery houses offer transportation services following surgery, often a minivan with the passenger seats reclined to make space for an inflatable mattress,
where patients, who are not supposed to sit down or lie on their backsides for at least two to four weeks, can lie on their stomachs during the ride.
When they arrive, the beds they’ve booked — usually two to a room — can cost anywhere from $80 to $400 a night.
Some recovery houses have nurses on site who can check vitals and provide massages that they claim help with healing.
B.B.L.s have among the highest mortality rate of any cosmetic surgery.
A whole host of things can go wrong;
most notably, the repurposed fat can travel through veins in the buttocks to pulmonary arteries and chambers of the heart, causing fat embolisms.
Transferred fat can also migrate beneath the muscle, tearing gluteal veins.
According to some recent surveys, for every 13,000 B.B.L.s performed in the United States, one results in death.
The Feminist Case for Breast Reduction
Until age 11, I was a confident, athletic child. Then, my breasts arrived.
My transformation inhibited me both physically and socially.
I couldn’t run anymore, partly because it was uncomfortable —
sports-bra technology had not developed enough to bind a chest like mine on a body my age —
but moreover because I could not be seen running.
I stopped playing sports, stopped playing outside altogether.
Worse, I was dogged by boys and loathed by girls and soon developed a reputation as a slut.
At first, this was solely because of my breasts, but it worsened when I reluctantly yielded to the boys who wanted to touch them.
Sexual attention could be alluring, but the specter of pleasure was a mirage.
Afraid to rebuff that which I’d invited, I consented to acts that overwhelmed me and was relentlessly harassed at school.
For most of my life, I desperately wanted my body to be different, and I also understood the obsession as a shortcoming — as a failure to be a real feminist.
I thought that I needed to accept my body, to love my body and find it beautiful, to successfully reject the internalized messaging of the patriarchal culture.
My shame signified a personal failure at this.
In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5,
body dysmorphic disorder is classified with other obsessive-compulsive disorders and
defined as a “preoccupation with one or more perceived defects or flaws in physical appearance that are not observable or appear slight to others.”
B.D.D. “causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other areas of functioning.”
The definition of the word “dysmorphic,” however, elides the element of misperception.
Its origin is the Greek dys- (bad, ill, difficult, abnormal) and morphē (form, shape).
Though the words are often used interchangeably, it is a crucial distinction:
to suffer from a misperception of the body as malformed and to suffer from a malformed body.
One is a pathology, the other a practical condition.
In a way, I suffered from both, though the category of malformed bodies becomes more opaque the closer you examine it.
It becomes possible to see a body’s malformation as that of the society it inhabits.
Despite never having read any feminist writing on cosmetic surgery, I knew
that the consensus was, as Kathy Davis, the foremost contemporary feminist theorist on the subject, wrote in a 1991 article in the journal “Hypatia,”
that cosmetic surgery was “regarded as an extreme form of medical misogyny, producing and reproducing the pernicious and pervasive cultural themes of deficient femininity.”
The woman who yielded to the desire to commit such violence to her body was a “cultural dope,”
afflicted by false consciousness, believing she made a personal choice
while actually yielding to a system that controls and oppresses women.
One clinical professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins stated in 1927 that
“a beauty surgeon works strictly on a commercial basis” and saw the patient’s personal satisfaction as the only yardstick by which his work was justified,
whereas the plastic surgeon “would be willing to operate only when the deformity was sufficient to justify it, and when he knew there would be real improvement.”
It was, in other words, a noble service to reconstruct wounded soldiers’ faces
but a disgrace to alter the bodies of women who had not been deformed by such crises.
Being an ugly woman, or simply a woman who experienced her body dysphorically,
was not a crisis on par with battlefield disfigurements, disease mutations or congenital anomalies
that had clinical names like a cleft palate or gigantomastia.
The supposed dichotomy between “medical” and “aesthetic” surgeries is reflected perhaps most starkly in today’s medicalization of sexual transition,
the manner in which transgender people seeking surgery must pathologize their experience
in order to receive permission from medical gatekeepers.
Growing older had changed me.
It was no longer important (or realistic) to strive for a particular kind of unattainable body.
In my mid-30s, I could no longer choose to go hungry, nor exercise with my previous fervor without risking injury.
Also, I cared little what men thought of me anymore.
This, along with my age and the reduced frequency with which I dressed in clothes that drew their attention, was probably a factor in their lessening attention.
I also cared a lot less what hypothetical fellow feminists thought of me,
partly because I knew that I had few actual friends who would judge me if I decided to get cosmetic surgery.
Despite the consideration of women’s lived experience with cosmetic surgery, feminist theory still largely considers it problematic, a way of trading one terrible suffering for a less terrible suffering —
the choices being to continue to live in a body that feels unbearable or to undergo an abhorrent violence.
The assumption is that no one would choose bodily violence unless it was to alleviate unbearable suffering.