红楼梦诗词英译词典(汉英对照)(txt+pdf+epub+mobi电子书下载)


发布时间:2020-09-20 21:31:41

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作者:高雷

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红楼梦诗词英译词典(汉英对照)

红楼梦诗词英译词典(汉英对照)试读:

前言

《红楼梦》于乾隆中期完稿,又名《石头记》、《情僧录》、《风月宝鉴》、《金陵十二钗》等。作为中国古典小说及章回小说的巅峰之作,《红楼梦》在中国文学史上一直享有崇高的地位,在世界文学史上也享有盛誉。《红楼梦》堪称中国封建社会的百科全书、中国古典文学的百科全书、中国传统文化的百科全书。它成了研究中国封建社会和中国传统文化的重要宝库,逐渐形成了“红学(redology)”热潮。《红楼梦》也成了中国古典文学对外翻译的热点著作。中外许多翻译家对《红楼梦》进行了节译、选译或全译。译本至今近60种,其中全译本有12种。鉴于本词典只收录英语译文,其他语种的译文都不在收录之中。我们能够得到的英语全译本有杨宪益夫妇翻译的A Dream of Red Mansions,David Hawkes 和John Minford 翻译的The Story of the Stone,以及B.S.Bonsall翻译的The Red Chamber Dream。全译本是我们考察翻译家翻译策略和翻译方法的最好资料,因为它们相对而言更系统、更统一、更全面,正因如此,本《红楼梦诗词英译词典》主要以上述三种全译本为收录对象。另外,H. Bencraft Joly翻译的The Dream of Red Chamber虽然只译了前56回,但它涵盖了《红楼梦》大部分诗词,因而,本词典也收录进来,以资参考,比较。由于翻译家参照的《红楼梦》版本多有不同,所以译本在某些内容上不尽一致。但从译本所再现的内容来看,基本都是依据程伟元、高鹗整理补缀的一百二十回印本系统。因而,所选译文在主要内容上基本一致,这使得译文具有了很强的可比性。《红楼梦》博大精深,不仅在语言、文体、思想艺术方面,即在建筑文化、服饰文化、饮食文化等方面也无不可以成为学问。若要编纂大型的《红楼梦翻译词典》,必将涉猎很多方面,成为《红楼梦》翻译百科词典,这远非笔者单枪匹马所能驾驭。基于诗词歌赋在整个《红楼梦》中的决定性作用,又因为它们在形式上易于把握,其译文又完全可以折射出译者的翻译策略,是故,笔者选取了《红楼梦诗词英译词典》这一课题,趋简避繁,以小见大。在《红楼梦》中,每一首诗词、每一幅对联、每一个灯谜,甚至每一句酒令无不切合小说人物的性格、气质,甚至外表长相,在故事情节上往往还起着起、承、转、合等作用,把整部小说融会贯通,使之浑然一体。另外,“‘红诗’与中国古典诗词一脉相承,曹雪芹在小说里创作的大量诗词曲赋,颇受古典诗词,尤其是唐诗宋词创作艺术的影响,借来之笔可说甚多,有的是直接引用,有的是借题仿咏。因此,‘红诗’中表现出来的意象同样具有中国古典诗歌那种多姿多彩且组合灵活的特色。虽然借来之笔颇多,但‘红诗’融入了小说的故事内容、情节发展以及人物的思想和性格特点,因此与其他古典诗词相比时,‘红诗’的意象又具有鲜明的个性特色。”《红楼梦》诗词歌赋在整篇小说中的重要作用,决定了任何红楼译者必须精心地对待这些诗词歌赋的翻译,这些诗词歌赋的翻译质量在很大程度上决定了整个《红楼梦》的翻译质量。读者可以从这些诗词的不同译文中窥见译者的翻译策略、翻译方法,甚至文化差异和意识形态等。本《红楼梦诗词英译词典》既可以为读者提供名家的译文作为参考,更为读者研究《红楼梦》的诗词翻译提供比较、分析的原材料,甚至为研究中国古典诗歌的翻译提供了很好的资料。“对《红楼梦》翻译艺术的研究,必将提高翻译工作者和翻译学习者的汉英翻译水平。”另外,本《红楼梦诗词英译词典》还在附录中提供了有关《红楼梦》诗词翻译研究的期刊论文、学术专著和硕博学位论文等的文献索引,以期为读者研究《红楼梦》诗词英译提供相关的文献资料。以上为编者拙见,并以之为前言,不妥之处,敬请指正!高雷2011年8月8日于韩侯故里

青埂峰偈(第一回)

无材可去补苍天,枉入红尘若许年。此系身前身后事,倩谁记去作奇传?(1)Unfit to mend the azure sky,I passed some years on earth to no avail;My life in both worlds is recorded here;Whom can I ask to pass on this romantic tale?(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Found unfit to repair the azure sky,Long years a foolish mortal man was I.My life in both worlds on this stone is writ:Pray who will copy out and publish it?(David Hawkes)(3)Lacking in virtues meet the azure sky to mend,In vain the mortal world full many a year I wend,Of a former and after life these facts that be,Who will for a tradition strange record for me?(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)Having no fitness to go for the repair of the blue sky,In vain I have entered the Red Dust for so many years.These are the events before birth and after death.Whom can I get to go and record them and make a wonderful tale?(B.S. Bonsall)

作者题绝(第一回)

满纸荒唐言,一把辛酸泪!都云作者痴,谁解其中味?(1)Pages full of fantastic talk,Penned with bitter tears;All men call the author mad,None his message hears.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Pages full of idle word,Penned with hot and bitter tears:All men call the author fool;None his secret message hears.(David Hawkes)(3)Pages full of silly litter,Tears a handful sour and bitter;All a fool the author hold,But their zest who can unfold?(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)Paper full of wildly impossible stories.A handful of hot bitter tears.Everyone says that the author is crazy.Who can explain its inner flavor?(B.S. Bonsall)

太虚幻境对联(第一回)

假作真时真亦假,无为有处有还无。(1)When false is taken for true, true becomes false;If non-being turns into being, being becomes non-being.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Truth becomes fiction when the fiction’s true.Real becomes unreal where the unreal’s real.(David Hawkes)(3)When falsehood stands for truth, truth likewise becomes false,Where naught be made to aught, aught changes into naught.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)When the false is taken for the real, the real also is false.Where non-existence is taken for existence, existence is also non-existence.(B.S. Bonsall)

癞头和尚嘲甄士隐(第一回)

惯养娇生笑你痴,菱花空对雪澌澌。好防佳节元宵后,便是烟消火灭时。(1)Fool, to care for this tender child:An image in the mirror, snow melting away.Beware what will follow the Lantern Feast,The vanishing like smoke when the fire burns out.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Fond man, your pampered child to cherish so-That caltrop-glass which shines on melting snow!Beware the high feast of the fifteenth day,When all in smoke and fire shall pass away!(David Hawkes)(3)You indulge your tender daughter and are laughed at as inane;Vain you face the snow, oh mirror! For it will evanescent wane,When the festival of lanterns is gone by, guard against your doom,’T is what time the flames will kindle, and the fire will consume.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)She is bought up as a pet. They will laugh at you for doting on her.The flower of the water-chestnut is blighted as the snow melts away.Take good care at the Festival. After the fifteenth of the first monthThat will be the time when the smoke clears away and the fire is extinguished.(B.S. Bonsall)

中秋对月 贾雨村(第一回)

未卜三生愿,频添一段愁。闷来时敛额,行去几回头。自顾风前影,谁堪月下俦?蟾光如有意,先上玉人楼。(1)Not yet divined the fate in store for me,Good reason have I for anxiety,And so my brows are knit despondently;But she, as she went off, looked back at me.My shadow in the wind is all I see,Will she by moonlight keep me company?If sensibility were in its powerThe moon should first light up the fair one’s bower.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Ere on ambition’s path my feet are set,Sorrow comes often this poor heart to fret.Yet, as my brow contracted with new care,Was there not one who, parting, turned to stare?Dare I, that grasp at shadows in the wind,Hope, underneath the moon, a friend to find?Bright orb, if with my plight you sympathize,Shine first upon the chamber where she lies.(David Hawkes)(3)Alas! Not yet divined my lifelong wish,And anguish ceaseless comes upon anguishI came, and sad at heart, my brow I frowned;She went, and oft her head to look turned round.Facing the breeze, her shadow she doth watch,Who’s meet this moonlight night with her to match?The lustrous rays if they my wish but readWould soon alight upon her beauteous head!(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)Ere the forecast of my lifelong desire,A strain of sadness was constantly added.When in melancholy mood I came, contracted was my brow.As she went away she slightly turned her head.I beheld her shadow myself before the breeze.Who is worthy to be my mate beneath the moon?If the toad-light has it in mind,First adorn the head of the beautiful girl.(B.S. Bonsall)

中秋对月绝句 贾雨村(第一回)

时逢三五便团圆,满把晴光护玉栏。天上一轮才捧出,人间万姓仰头看。(1)On the fifteenth the moon is full,Bathing jade balustrades with her pure light;As her bright orb sails up the sky,All men on earth gaze upwards at the sight.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)In thrice five nights her perfect O is made,Whose cold light bathes each marble balustrade.As her bright wheel starts on its starry ways,On earth ten thousand heads look up and gaze.(David Hawkes)(3)’T is what time three meets five, Selene is a globe!Her pure rays fill the court, the jadelike rails enrobe!Lo! In the heavens her disk to view doth now arise,And in the earth below to gaze men lift their eyes.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)When the season comes to the fifteenth the circle is complete.In its fullness it casts a clear light on the marble balustrade.In the heaven above a disc has just been brought forth.The ten thousand families of mankind lift up their heads to look.(B.S. Bonsall)

好了歌 跛足道人(第一回)

世人都晓神仙好,惟有功名忘不了!古今将相在何方?荒冢一堆草没了。世人都晓神仙好,只有金银忘不了!终朝只恨聚无多,及到多时眼闭了。世人都晓神仙好,只有姣妻忘不了!君生日日说恩情,君死又随人去了。世人都晓神仙好,只有儿孙忘不了!痴心父母古来多,孝顺儿孙谁见了?(1)All Good Things Must EndAll men long to be immortals,Yet to riches and rank each aspires;The great ones of old, where are they now?Their graves are a mass of briars.All men long to be immortals,Yet silver and gold they prize;And grub for money all their livesTill death seals up their eyes.All men long to be immortals,Yet dote on the wives they’ve wed,Who swear to love their husband evermore,But remarry as soon as he’s dead.All men long to be immortals,Yet with getting sons won’t have done.Although fond parents are legion,Who ever saw a really filial son?(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Won-Done SongMen all know that salvation should be won,But with ambition won’t have done, have done.Where are the famous ones of days gone by?In grassy graves they lie now, every one.Men all know that salvation should be won,But with their riches won’t have done, have done.Each day they grumble they’ve not made enough.When they’ve enough, it’s goodnight everyone.Men all know that salvation should be won,But with their loving wives they won’t have done.The darlings every day protest their love:But once you’re dead, they’re off with another one.Men all know that salvation should be won,But with their children won’t have done, have done.Yet though of patents fond there is no lack,Of grateful children saw I ne’er a one.(David Hawkes)(3)Excellent-finalityAll men spiritual life know to be good,But fame to disregard they ne’er succeed!From old till now the statesmen where are they?Waste lie their graves, a heap of grass, extinct.All men spiritual life know to be good,But to forget gold, silver, ill succeed!Through life they grudge their hoardings to be scant,And when plenty has come, their eyelids close.All men spiritual life hold to be good,Yet to forget wives, maids, they ne’er succeed!Who speak of grateful love while lives their lord,And dead their lord, another they pursue.All men spiritual life know to be good,But sons and grandsons to forget never succeed!From old till now of parents soft many,But filial sons and grandsons who have seen?(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)“Hao liao” songMen of the world all know that it is good to be an Immortal.But their merit and reputation they cannot forget.Where are the generals and ministers of the past and the present?Their neglected tombs are hidden under heaps of grass.Men of the world all know that it is good to be an Immortal.But their gold and silver they cannot forget.All day long they do but grieve that what they have collected is not much.When they reach the time when they have much, their eyes are closed for ever.Men of the world all know that it is good to be an Immortal.But their winsome wives they cannot forget.While, Sir, you are alive, day and day they speak with kindness and affection.When, Sir, you are dead, they will go off with someone else.Men of the world all know that it is good to be an Immortal.But their sons and grandsons they cannot forget.Doting parents from ancient times have been many.Filial and obedient sons and grandsons who has seen?(B.S. Bonsall)

好了歌注 甄士隐(第一回)

陋室空堂,当年笏满床;衰草枯杨,曾为歌舞场。蛛丝儿结满雕梁,绿纱今又糊在蓬窗上。说什么脂正浓,粉正香,如何两鬓又成霜?昨日黄土陇头送白骨,今宵红灯帐底卧鸳鸯。金满箱,银满箱,转眼乞丐人皆谤。正叹他人命不长,哪知自己归来丧!训有方,保不定日后作强梁。择膏粱,谁承望流落在烟花巷!因嫌纱帽小,致使锁枷扛;昨怜破袄寒,今嫌紫蟒长:乱烘烘你方唱罢我登场,反认他乡是故乡。甚荒唐,到头来都是为他人做嫁衣裳!(1)Mean huts and empty hallsWhere emblems of nobility once hung;Dead weeds and withered trees,Where men have once danced and sung.Carved beams are swathed in cobwebsBut briar-choked casements screened again with gauze;While yet the rouge is fresh, the powder fragrant,The hair at the temples turns hoary for what cause?Yesterday, yellow clay received white bones;Today, red lanterns light the love-birds’ nest;While men with gold and silver by the chestTurn beggars, scorned by all the dispossessed.A life cut short one moment makes one sight,Who would have known it’s her turn next to die?No matter with what pains he schools his sons.Who knows if they will turn to brigandry?A pampered girl brought up in luxuryMay slip into a quarter of ill fame;Resentment at a low official rankMay lead to fetters and a felon’s shame.In ragged coat one shivered yesterday,Today a purple robe he frowns upon;All’s strife and tumult on the stage,As one man ends his song the next comes on.To take strange parts as homeIs folly past compare;And all our labour in the endIs making clothes for someone else to wear.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Mean hovels and abandoned hallsWhere courtiers once paid daily calls:Bleak haunts where weeds and willows scarcely thriveWere once with mirth and revelry alive.Whilst cobwebs shroud the mansion’s gilded beams,The cottage casement with choice muslin gleams.Would you of perfumed elegance recite?Even as you speak, the raven locks turn white.Who yesterday her lord’s bones laid in clay,On silken bridal-bed shall lie today.Coffers with gold and silver filled:Now, in a trice, a tramp by all reviled.One at some other’s short life gives a sigh,Not knowing that he, too, goes home-to die!The sheltered and well-educated lad,In spite of all your care, may turn out bad;And the delicate, fastidious maidEnd in a foul stews, plying a shameful trade.The judge whose hat is too small for his headWears, in the end, a convict’s cangue instead.Who shivering once in rags bemoaned his fate,Today finds fault with scarlet robes of state.In such commotion does the world’s theatre rage:As each one leaves, another takes the stage.In vain we roam:Each in the end must call a strange land home.Each of us with that poor girl may compareWho sews a wedding-gown for another bride to wear.(David Hawkes)(3)Sordid rooms and vacant courts,Replete in years gone by with beds where statesmen lay;Parched grass and withered banian trees,Where once were halls for song and dance!Spiders’ webs the carved pillars intertwine,The green gauze now is also pasted on the straw windows!What about the cosmetic fresh concocted or the powder just scented;Why has the hair too on each temple become white like hoarfrost!Yesterday the tumulus of yellow earth buried the bleached bones,To-night under the red silk curtain reclines the couple!Gold fills the coffers, silver fills the boxes,But in a twinkle, the beggars will all abuse you!While you deplore that the life of others is not long,You forget that you yourself are approaching death!You educate your sons with all propriety,But they may some day, ’t is hard to say become thieves;Though you choose (your fare and home) the fatted beam,You may, who can say, fall into some place of easy virtue!Through your dislike of the gauze hat as mean,You have come to be locked in a cangue;Yesterday, poor fellow, you felt cold in a tattered coat,To-day, you despise the purple embroidered dress as long!Confusion reigns far and wide! You have just sung your part, I come on the boards,Instead of yours, you recognise another as your native land;What utter perversion!In one word, it comes to this we make wedding clothes for others!(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)A mean house, an empty hall.The official tablets of former years filling the bed.Decayed grass and withered willows.It used to be a place for song and dance.The threads of spiders’ webs are knotted all over the carved beams.The green gauze is still on the weed-grown windows.Talk of ointment all rich, powder all fragrant!How is it that the hair on both temples has become frosted?Yesterday in the mound of yellow earth white bones were buried.This night beneath the curtain made of red silkSleep husband and wife.Gold fills the box. Silver fills the box.In the turn of an eye beggars will all revile.Just as one sighs that the allotted span of another is not long,How does he know that he himself returns to death?Although the instruction is methodical,It cannot be guaranteed that afterwards he will be a strong beam.Choose fat meat and fine millet.Who would have expected him to slip down into opium dens and brothels?Because he disliked that his gauze hat was small,It came to pass that he was locked in the cangue.Yesterday he felt it pitiable that he was cold in his tattered jacket.Now he dislikes that his crimson boa is long.A blaze of confusion!When you have finished playing your part, I come on the scene.But I recognize his native place is my native place.What a perverse mistake!To bring the matter to a head,It is all a case of making bridal garments for another.(B.S. Bonsall)

作者评娇杏(第二回)

偶因一着错,便为人上人。(1)A single chance hiatusRaised her status.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Sometimes by chanceA look or a glanceMay one’s fortune advance.(David Hawkes)(3)Through but one single, casual lookSoon an exalted place she took.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)Because of a single accidental glanceShe became a person of the upper class.(B.S. Bonsall)

智通寺对联(第二回)

身后有余忘缩手,眼前无路想回头。(1)Though plenty was left after death, he forgot to hold his hand back;Only at the end of the road does one think of turning on to the right track.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)As long as there is a sufficiency behind you, you press greedily forward.It is only when there is no road in front of you that you think of turning back.(David Hawkes)(3)Behind ample there is, yet to retract the hand, the mind heeds not, until.Before the mortal vision lies no path, when comes to turn the will.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)Behind him there is abundance. He forgets to draw back his hand.In front of his eyes there is no road. He thinks to turn round his head.(B.S. Bonsall)

堂屋对联(第三回)

座上珠玑昭明月,堂前黼黻焕烟霞。(1)Pearls on the dais outshine the sun and moon;Insignia of honour in the hall blaze like iridescent clouds.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)May the jewel of learning shine in this house mote effulgently than the sun and moon.May the insignia of honour glitter in these halls more brilliantly than the starry sky.(David Hawkes)(3)On the platform shine resplendent pearls like sun or moon,And the sheen of the Hall facade gleams like russet sky.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)The pearls on the throne shine on the sun and the moon.The embroidered robes before the hall make brilliant the mist.(B.S. Bonsall)

西江月二词批宝玉(第三回)

无故寻愁觅恨,有时似傻如狂。纵然生得好皮囊,腹内原来草莽。潦倒不通世务,愚顽怕读文章。行为偏僻性乖张,那管世人诽谤!富贵不知乐业,贫穷难耐凄凉。可怜辜负好韶光,于国于家无望。天下无能第一,古今不肖无双。寄言纨绔与膏粱:莫效此儿形状!(1)The Moon over the West RiverAbsurdly he courts care and melancholyAnd raves like any madman in his folly;For though endowed with handsome looks is he,His heart is lawless and refractory.Too dense by far to understand his duty,Too stubborn to apply himself to study,Foolhardy in his eccentricity,He’s deaf to all reproach and obloquy.Left cold by riches and nobility,Unfit to bear the stings of poverty,He wastes his time and his ability,Failing his country and his family.First in this world for uselessness is he,Second to none in his deficiency.Young fops and lordlings all, be warned by me:Don’t imitate this youth’s perversity!(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Moon On West RiverOft-times he sought out what would make him sad;Sometimes an idiot seemed and sometimes mad.Though outwardly a handsome sausage-skin,He proved to have but sorry meat within.A harum-scarum, to all duty blind,A doltish mule, to study disinclined;His acts outlandish and his nature queer;Yet not a whit cared he how folk might jeer!Prosperous, he could not play his part with grace,Nor, poor, bear hardship with a smiling face.So shamefully the precious hours he’d wasteThat both indoors and out he was disgraced.For uselessness the world’s prize he might bear;His gracelessness in history has no peer.Let gilded youths who every dainty sampleNot imitate this rascal’s dire example!(David Hawkes)(3)Hsi Chiang YuehTo gloom and passion prone, without a rhyme,Inane and madlike was he many a time,His outer self, forsooth, fine may have been,But one wild, howling waste his mind within:Addled his brain that nothing he could see;A dunce! To read essays so loth to be!Perverse in bearing, in temper wayward;For human censure he had no regard.When rich, wealth to enjoy he knew not how;When poor, to poverty he could not bow.Alas! What utter waste of lustrous grace!To state, to family what a disgrace!Of ne’er-do-wells below he was the prime,Unfilial like him none up to this time.Ye lads, pampered with sumptuous fare and dress,Beware! In this youth’s footsteps do not press!(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)Western River MoonWithout any cause he sought for sorrow and searched for grief.At times he was like a fool, as if he were mad.Granted that he was born with a good leather sack,Yet in his belly were grass and weeds.He was a failure who did not understand ordinary affairs.He was stupid and doltish, afraid to read literary compositions.His conduct was depraved. His disposition was perverse.What did he care for the censure of men?When he was rich and of high rank he did not know how to be pleased with his lot.When he was poor and in straits he found it hard to endure the cold.What a pity! He was ungrateful for his good circumstances.In the State and at home he had no prospects.He was of all those who were useless the worst.In ancient and in modern times he has not had a double for worthlessness.Let it be told to those who wear trousers of silk and feed on fat things.Do not copy this pattern.(B.S. Bonsall)

赞林黛玉(第三回)

两弯似蹙非蹙罥烟眉,一双似喜非喜含情目。态生两靥之愁,娇袭一身之病。泪光点点,娇喘微微。闲静时如娇花照水,行动处似弱柳扶风。心较比干多一窍,病如西子胜三分。(1)Her dusky arched eyebrows were knitted and yet not frowning,Her speaking eyes held both merriment and sorrow;Her very frailty had charm.Her eyes sparkled with tears, her breath was soft and faint.In repose she was like a lovely flower mirrored in the water;In motion, a pliant willow swaying in the wind.She looked more sensitive than Bi Gan, more delicate than Xi Shi.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Her mist-wreathed brows at first seemed to frown, yet were not frowning;Her passionate eyes at first seemed to smile, yet were not merry.Habit had given a melancholy cast to her tender face;Nature had bestowed a sickly constitution on her delicate frame.Often the eyes swam with glistening tears;Often the breath came in gentle gasps.In stillness she made one think of a graceful flower reflected in the water;In motion she called to mind tender willow shoots caressed by the wind.She had more chambers in her heart than the martyred Bi Gan;And suffered a tithe more pain in it than the beautiful Xi Shi.(David Hawkes)(3)Her two arched eyebrows, thick as clustered smoke, bore a certain not very pronounced frowning wrinkle.She had a pair of eyes, which possessed a cheerful, and yet one would say, a sad expression, overflowing with sentiment.Her face showed the prints of sorrow stamped on her two dimpled cheeks.She was beautiful, but her whole frame was the prey of a hereditary disease.The tears in her eyes glistened like small specks.Her balmy breath was so gentle.She was as demure as a lovely flower reflected in the water.Her gait resembled a frail willow, agitated by the wind.Her heart, compared with that of Pi Kan, had one more aperture of intelligence;While her ailment exceeded (in intensity) by three degrees the ailment of Hsi-Tzu.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)He saw two curved eyebrows, as if they were wrinkled and yet not wrinkled, which met each other,A pair of eyes as if they were pleased and yet were not pleased, and full of affection.She bore marks of sorrow on her cheeks.She was delicate, having inherited an illness all her life.Her eyes sparkled as if with tears.Her delicate breathing was very slight.In repose she was like a delicate flower reflected in water.In movement she resembled the pliant willow bending to the wind.Her heart had one more aperture than that of Pi Kan.Her illness was greater than that of Hsi-Tzu by three tenths.(B.S. Bonsall)

护官符(第四回)

贾不假,白玉为堂金作马。阿房宫,三百里,住不下金陵一个史。东海缺少白玉床,龙王来请金陵王。丰年好大雪,珍珠如土金如铁。(1)Officials’ Protective CharmThe Jinling Jias,If truth be told,Have halls of jade,Stables of gold.Vast O Pang Palace,Fit for a king,Isn’t fine enoughFor the Shis of Jinling.If the Dragon King wantsA white jade bed,He applies to the WangsOf Jinling, it’s said.The Xues in their affluenceAre so rich and grand,Gold is like iron to themAnd pearls like sand.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Mandarin’s Lift-PreserverShout hip hurrahFor the Nanking Jia!They weigh their gold outBy the jar.The Ah-bang PalaceScrapes the sky,But it could not houseThe Nanking Shi.The King of the OceanGoes along,When he’s short of gold beds,To the Nanking Wang.The Nanking XueSo rich are they,To count their moneyWould take all day.(David Hawkes)(3)Office-PhilacteryThe “Chia” family is not “chia,” a myth;White jade form the Halls;Gold compose their horses!The “A Fang” Palace is three hundred li in extent,But is no fit residence for a “Shih” of Chin Ling.The eastern seas lack white jade beds,And the “Lung Wang,” king of the Dragons,Has come to ask for one of the Chin Ling Wang.In a plenteous year, snow is very plentiful;Their pearls and gems are like sand, their gold like iron.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)Protect Official CharmOf the Chia it is not false.White jade is used to make halls.Gold is used to make horses.The luxurious Residence was three hundred li in extent.It is not sufficient to accommodate a Shih in Chin-ling.By the eastern sea a bed of white jade was lacking.The Dragon King came to ask the Wangs of Chin-ling.In an abundant year there is very great snow.Pearls are like earth.Gold is like iron.(B.S. Bonsall)

上房内间对联(第五回)

世事洞明皆学问,人情练达即文章。(1)A grasp of mundane affairs is genuine knowledge,Understanding of worldly wisdom is true learning.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)True learning implies a clear insight into human activities.Genuine culture involves the skilful manipulation of human relationships.(David Hawkes)(3)A thorough insight into worldly matters arises from knowledge;A clear perception of human nature emanates from literary lore.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)To understand the affairs of the world-is all learning.To have a thorough experience of human affection-that is literature.(B.S. Bonsall)

秦太虚对联(第五回)

嫩寒锁梦因春冷,芳气袭人是酒香。(1)Coolness wraps her dream, for spring is chill;A fragrance assails men, the aroma of wine.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)

The coldness of spring has imprisoned the soft buds in a wintry dream;The fragrance of wine has intoxicated the beholder with imagined flower-scents.(David Hawkes)(3)A gentle chill doth circumscribe the dreaming man, because the spring is cold.The fragrant whiff, which wafts itself into man’s nose, is the perfume of wine!(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)The slight chill locks up the dream because spring is cold.The scented breath which takes men by surprise is the fragrance of wine.(B.S. Bonsall)

警幻仙姑歌词(第五回)

春梦随云散,花飞逐水流。寄言众儿女,何必觅闲愁。(1)Gone with the clouds spring’s dream.Flowers drift away on the stream.Young lovers all, be warned by me,Cease courting needless misery.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Spring’s dream-time will like drifting clouds disperse,Its flowers snatched by a flood none can reverse.Then tell each nymph and swain’T is folly to invite love’s pain!(David Hawkes)(3)Like scattering clouds doth fleet a vernal dream;The transient flowers pass like a running stream;Maidens and youths bear this, ye all, in mind;In useless grief what profit will ye find?(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)The dreams of spring follow the clouds and scatter.The flying flowers pursue the water and flow away.Send word to all boys and girls.Why must they seek sorrow which need not be theirs?(B.S. Bonsall)

警幻仙子赋(第五回)

方离柳坞,乍出花房。但行处,鸟惊庭树;将到时,影度回廊。仙袂乍飘兮,闻麝兰之馥郁;荷衣欲动兮,听环佩之铿锵。靥笑春桃兮,云堆翠髻;唇绽樱颗兮,榴齿含香。纤腰之楚楚兮,回风舞雪;珠翠之辉辉兮,满额鹅黄。出没花间兮,宜嗔宜喜;徘徊池上兮,若飞若扬。蛾眉颦笑兮,将言而未语;莲步乍移兮,待止而欲行。羡彼之良质兮,冰清玉润;慕彼之华服兮,闪灼文章。爱彼之貌容兮,香培玉篆;比彼之态度兮,凤翥龙翔。其素若何,春梅绽雪;其洁若何,秋蕙被霜;其静若何,松生空谷;其艳若何,霞映澄塘;其文若何,龙游曲沼;其神若何,月射寒江。应惭西子,实愧王嫱。生于孰地?降自何方?若非宴罢归来,瑶池不二;定应吹箫引去,紫府无双者也。(1)Leaving the willow bank, she comes just now through the flowers.Her approach startles birds in the trees in the court,And soon her shadow falls across the verandah.Her fairy sleeves, fluttering, give off a heady fragrance of musk and orchid.With each rustle of her lotus garments, her jade pendants tinkle.Her dimpled smile is peach-blossom in spring, her blue-black hair a cluster of clouds.Her lips are cherries and sweet the breath from her pomegranate teeth.The curve of her slender waist is snow whirled by the wind.Dazzling her pearls and emeralds and gosling-gold the painted design on her forehead.She slips in and out of the flowers, now vexed, now radiant,And floats over the lake as if on wings.Her mothlike eyebrows are knit yet there lurks a smile,And no sound issues from her lips parted as if to speak.

As she glides swiftly on lotus feet and, pausing, seems poised for flight.Her flawless complexion is pure as ice, smooth as jade.Magnificent her costume with splendid designs.Sweet her face, compact of fragrance, carved in jade;And she bears herself like a phoenix or dragon in flight.Her whiteness? Spring plum-blossom glimpsed through snow.Her purity? Autumn orchids coated with frost.Her tranquility? A pine in a lonely valley.Her beauty? Sunset mirrored in a limpid pool.Her grace? A dragon breasting a winding stream.Her spirit? Moonlight on a frosty flyer.She would put Xi Shi to shame and make Wang Qiang blush.Where was this wonder born, whence does she come?Verily she has no peer in fairyland, no equal in the purple courts of heaven.Who can she be, this beauty?(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)She has left her willow-tree house, from her blossoming bower stepped out;For the birds betray where she walks through the trees that cluster about,And a shadow athwart the winding walk announces that she is near,And a fragrance of musk and orchid from fluttering fairy sleeves,And a tinkle of girdle-gems that falls on the earAt each movement of her dress of lotus leaves.A peach-tree blossoms in her dimpling cheek;Her cloud-coiled tresses are halcyon-sleek;And she reveals, through parted cherry lips,Teeth like pomegranate pips.Her slim waist’s sinuous swaying calls to mindThe dance of snowflakes with the waltzing wind;Hair ornaments of pearl and halcyon blueOutshine her painted forehead’s golden hue.Her face, through blossoms fleetingly disclosed,To mirth or ire seems equally disposed;And as by the waterside she goes,Hovering on light-stepping toes,A half-incipient look of piqueSays she would speak, yet would not speak;While her feet, with the same irresolution,Would halt, yet would not interrupt their motion.I contemplate her rate complexion,Ice-pure and jade-like in perfection;I marvel at her glittering dress,Where art lends grace to sumptuousness;I wonder at her fine-cut featured-Marble, which fragrance marks as one with living creatures;And I admire her queenly gait,Like stately dance of simurgh with his mate.Her purity I can best showIn plum-trees flowering in the snow;Her chastity I shall recallIn orchids white at first frost-fall;Her tranquil nature will prevail,Constant as lone pine in an empty vale;Her loveliness as dazzled makeAs sunset gilding a pellucid lake;Her glittering elegance I can compareWith dragons in an ornamental mere;Her dreamy soulfulness most seemsLike wintry waters in the moon’s cold beams.The beauties of days gone by by her beauty are all abashed.Where was she born, and from whence descended?Immortal I judge her, fresh come from fairy feastings by the Jasper Pool,Or from fluting in starry balls, some heavenly concert ended.(David Hawkes)(3)Lo she just quits the willow bank;And sudden now she issues from the flower-bedecked house.As onward alone she speeds, she startles the birds perched in the trees, by the pavilion;To which as she draws nigh, her shadow flits by the verandah!Her fairy clothes now flutter in the wind!A fragrant perfume like unto musk or olea is wafted in the air;Her apparel lotus-like is sudden wont to move;And the jingle of her ornaments strikes the ear.Her dimpled cheeks resemble, as they smile, a vernal peach;Her kingfisher coiffure is like a cumulus of clouds;Her lips part cherry-like;Her pomegranate-like teeth conceal a fragrant breath.Her slender waist, so beauteous to look at,Is like the skipping snow wafted by a gust of wind;The sheen of her pearls and kingfisher trinkets abounds with splendour, green as the feathers of a duck, and yellow as the plumes of a goose;Now she issues to view, and now is hidden among the flowers;Beautiful she is when displeased, beautiful when in high spirits;With lissome step, she treads along the pond,As if she soars on wings or sways in the air.Her eyebrows are crescent moons, and knit under her smiles;She speaks, and yet she seems no word to utter;Her lotus-like feet with ease pursue their course;She stops, and yet she seems still to be in motion;The charms of her figure all vie with ice in purity,And in splendour with precious gems;Lovely is her brilliant attire, so full of grandeur and refined grace.Loveable her countenance, as if moulded from some fragrant substance,or carved from white jade;Elegant is her person, like a phoenix, dignified like a dragon soaring high.What is her chastity like?Like a white plum in spring with snow nestling in its broken skin;Her purity?Like autumn orchids bedecked with dewdrops.Her modesty?Like a fir-tree growing in a barren plain;Her comeliness?Like russet clouds reflected in a limpid pool.Her gracefulness?Like a dragon in motion wriggling in a stream;Her refinement?Like the rays of the moon shooting on to a cool river.Sure is she to put Hsi Tzu to shame!Bound to put Wang Ch’iang to the blush!What a remarkable person!Where was she born? And whence does she come?One thing is true that in Fairy-land there is no second like her!That in the Purple Courts of Heaven there is no one fit to be her peer!Forsooth, who can it be, so surpassingly beautiful!(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)She is just leaving the willow bank.She suddenly comes out from the house of flowers.She does but move from her place,The birds in alarm settle in the trees.When she is about to come,Her shadow measures the verandah.Her fairy sleeves suddenly flutter,Smell the delicious aroma of musk and orchid.Her exquisite garments are about to move,Listen to the tinkle of her girdle ornaments.Her smiling cheeks are like the peaches in Spring.Her curling hair is fastened in heaps with turquoise,Her parting lips are like cherries,Her teeth like pomegranate seeds are full of fragrance.Behold the beauty of her slender waist,Like whirling wind and dancing snow.The distinctive splendour of brilliant pearls and turquoise.Green the ducks. Yellow the geese,As they come out and go in among the flowers.Now angry, now pleased,They go backwards and forwards upon the pool,As if flying or soaring in the air.Her beautiful eyebrows are about to wrinkle.She is going to speak but has not uttered a word.Her lotus steps suddenly move.She is about to stop but keeps on walking.I yearn after the excellence of the beautiful girl,Clear as ice, lustrous as jade.I admire the beautiful girl’s brightly coloured garments,Baffling in their elegance.I love the beautiful girl’s features,Fragrance piled up, carved in jade.Compare the beautiful girl’s deportment,The phoenix soars. The dragon wheels in the air.What is her purity like?The Autumn orchid covered with hoarfrost.What is her modesty like?The pine tree growing in the empty ravine.What is her winsomeness like?The red clouds at sunset lighting up a limpid pond.What is her gracefulness like?A dragon roaming in a winding pool.What is her divinity like?The moon shooting its rays on the cold river.In the distance she puts Hsi-tzu to shame.Near at hand she makes Wang-chiang ashamed.In what land was she born? From what quarter has she come down?If she does not return at the end of the feast, the Yao pool has not a second.Surely we ought to play on flutes as we lead her away,The Purple Hall has not another like her.(B.S. Bonsall)

孽海情天对联(第五回)

厚地天高,堪叹古今情不尽;痴男怨女,可怜风月债难酬。(1)Firm as earth and lofty as heaven, passion from time immemorial knows no end;Pity silly lads and plaintive maids hard put to it to requite debts of breeze and moonlight.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Ancient earth and sky marvel that love’s passion should outlast all time.Star-crossed men and maids groan that love’s debts should be so hard to pay.(David Hawkes)(3)Passion, alas! Thick as the earth, and lofty as the skies, from ages past to the present hath held incessant sway;How pitiful your lot! Ye lustful men and women envious, that your voluptuous debts should be so hard to pay!(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)Substantial as the earth, lofty as the sky. Alas! The loves of ancient and modern times are unending.Infatuated men, resentful women. The pity of it! The debts of romance are hard to repay.(B.S. Bonsall)

薄命司对联(第五回)

春恨秋悲皆自惹,花容月貌为谁妍。(1)They brought on themselves spring grief and autumn anguish;Wasted, their beauty fair as flowers and moon.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Spring grieves and autumn sorrows were by yourselves provoked.Flower faces, moonlike beauty were to what end disclosed?(David Hawkes)(3)Upon one’s self are mainly brought regrets in spring and autumn gloom;A face, flowerlike may be and moonlike too; but beauty all for whom?(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)The hatreds of Spring, the sorrows of Autumn, are all provoked by oneself.The flowery countenance, the moon-shaped face-for whom is the beauty?(B.S. Bonsall)

金陵十二钗图册判词 晴雯(第五回)

霁月难逢,彩云易散。心比天高,身为下贱。风流灵巧招人怨。寿夭多因毁谤生,多情公子空牵念。(1)A clear moon is rarely met with,Bright clouds are easily scattered;Her heart is loftier than the sky,But her person is of low degree.Her charm and wit give rise to jealousy,Her early death is caused by calumny,In vain her loving master’s grief must be.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Seldom the moon shines in a cloudless sky,And days of brightness all too soon pass by.A noble and aspiring mindIn a base-born frame confined,Your charm and wit did only hatred gain,And in the end you were by slanders slain,Your gentle lord’s solicitude in vain.(David Hawkes)(3)A cloudless moon is rare forsooth to see,And pretty clouds so soon scatter and flee!Thy heart is deeper than the heavens are high,Thy frame consists of base ignominy!Thy looks and clever mind resentment will provoke,And thine untimely death vile slander will evoke!A loving noble youth in vain for love will yearn.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)The moon in a clear sky is hard to meet.The brilliantly coloured clouds are easily scattered.Her mind is higher than the sky.Her person is low and mean.Her refinement and her cleverness call forth the resentment of others.Her early death is largely due to slander.The young gentleman of such affection thinks of her in vain.(B.S. Bonsall)

金陵十二钗图册判词 袭人(第五回)

枉自温柔和顺,空云似桂如兰。堪羡优伶有福,可叹公子无缘。(1)Nothing avail her gentleness and compliance,Osmanthus and orchid with her fragrance vie;But this prize is borne off by an actor,And luck passes the young master by.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)What price your kindness and compliance,Of sweetest flower the rich perfume?You chose the player fortune favoured,Unmindful of your master’s doom.(David Hawkes)(3)Thy self-esteem for kindly gentleness is but a fancy vain!

Thy charms that they can match the olea or orchid, but thoughts inane!While an actor will, envious lot! With fortune’s smiles be born,A youth of noble birth will, strange to say, be luckless and forlorn.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)It is in vain that she herself is mild and agreeable.It is useless to say that she is like the cassia or the orchid.The desirable actor has the happiness.Who knows that the young gentleman has no destined affinity?(B.S. Bonsall)

金陵十二钗图册判词 香菱(第五回)

根并荷花一茎香,平生遭际实堪伤。自从两地生孤木,致使香魂返故乡。(1)Sweet is she as the lotus in flower,Yet none so sorely oppressed;After the growth of a lonely tree in two soils,Her sweet soul will be dispatched to its final rest.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Your stem grew from a noble lotus root,Yet your life passed, poor flower, in low repute.The day two earths shall bear a single tree,Your soul must fly home to its own country.(David Hawkes)(3)The lotus root and flower but one fragrance will give;How deep alas! The wounds of thy life’s span will be;What time a desolate tree in two places will live,Back to its native home the fragrant ghost will flee!(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)The lotus flower with the joined root-a single stem of fragrance.In the course of life she meets with circumstances which are indeed grievous,From the time that in two places has lived a solitary tree,Until the fragrant spirit is sent back to its original country.(B.S. Bonsall)

金陵十二钗图册判词 宝钗、黛玉(第五回)

可叹停机德,堪怜咏絮才。玉带林中挂,金簪雪里埋。(1)Alas for her wifely virtue,Her wit to sing of willow-down, poor maid!Buried in snow the broken golden hairpin,And hanging in the wood the belt of jade.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)One was a pattern of female virtue,One a wit who made other wits seem slow.The jade belt in the greenwood hangs,The gold pin is buried beneath the snow.(David Hawkes)(3)Bitter thy cup will be, e’en were the virtue thine to stop the loom,Thine though the gift the willow fluff to sing, pity who will thy doom?High in the trees doth hang the girdle of white jade,And lo! Among the snow the golden pin is laid!(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)How sad! The ability to bring to a standstill the secret working of heaven.Who has pity on catkin poetry talents?The jade girdle is hung up in the grove.The golden hairpin is buried in the snow.(B.S. Bonsall)

金陵十二钗图册判词 元春(第五回)

二十年来辨是非,榴花开处照宫闱。三春争及初春景?虎兔相逢大梦归。(1)For twenty years she arbitrates,Where pomegranates blaze by palace gates.How can the late spring equal the spring’s start?When Hare and Tiger meet, from this Great Dream of life she must depart.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)You shall, when twenty years in life’s hard school are done,In pomegranate-time to palace halls ascend.Though three springs never could with your first spring compare,When hare meets tiger your great dream shall end.(David Hawkes)(3)Full twenty years right and wrong to expound will be thy fate!What place pomegranate blossoms come in bloom will face the Palace Gate!The third portion of spring, of the first spring in beauty short will fall!When tiger meets with hare thou wilt return to sleep perennial.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)For the past twenty years she has distinguished between the right and the wrong.The place where the pomegranate flower opens shines the palace door.The three springs contend to attain to the brightness of the first spring.When the Tiger and the Hare meet she returns from the Great Dream.(B.S. Bonsall)

金陵十二钗图册判词 探春(第五回)

才自精明志自高,生于末世运偏消。清明涕送江边望,千里东风一梦遥。(1)So talented and high-minded,She is born too late for luck to come her way.Through tears she watches the stream on the Clear and Bright Day;A thousand lithe east wind blows, but her home in her dreams is far away.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Blessed with a shrewd mind and a noble heart,Yet born in time of twilight and decay,In spring through tears at river’s bank you gaze,Borne by the wind a thousand miles away.(David Hawkes)(3)Pure and bright will be thy gifts, thy purpose very high;But born thou wilt be late in life and luck be passed by;At the tomb feast thou wilt repine tearful along the stream,East winds may blow, but home miles off will be, even in dream.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)Ability indeed clear and bright. Ambition indeed high.Being a late-born child, her destiny unhappily is ruined.At the season “Clear and Bright” towards the river bank with tears she looks out.With a thousand li East Wind a dream becomes remote.(B.S. Bonsall)

金陵十二钗图册判词 湘云(第五回)

富贵又何为?襁褓之间父母违。展眼吊斜晖,湘江水逝楚云飞。(1)Nought avail her rank and riches,While yet in swaddling clothes an orphan lone;In a flash she mourns the setting sun,The river Xiang runs dry, the clouds over Chu have flown.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)What shall avail you rank and riches,Orphaned while yet in swaddling bands you lay?Soon you must mourn your bright sun’s early setting.The Xiang flows and the Chu clouds sail away.(David Hawkes)(3)Riches and honours too what benefit are they?In swaddling clothes thou’ll be when parents pass away;The rays will slant, quick as the twinkle of an eye;The Hsiang stream will recede, the Ch’u clouds onward fly!(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)And what could wealth and rank do?While she was still in her swaddling clothes her father and mother left her.She opens her eyes and mourns to the setting sun.The waters of the river Hsiang flow away. The clouds of Ch’u fly.(B.S. Bonsall)

金陵十二钗图册判词 妙玉(第五回)

欲洁何曾洁?云空未必空。可怜金玉质,终陷淖泥中。(1)Chastity is her wish,Seclusion her desire;Alas, though fine as gold or jadeShe sinks at last in the mire.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)For all your would-be spotlessnessAnd vaunted otherworldliness,You that look down on common flesh and blood,Yourself impure, shall end up in the mud.(David Hawkes)(3)Thine aim is chastity, but chaste thou wilt not be;Abstraction is thy faith, but void thou may’st not see;Thy precious, gemlike self will, pitiful to say,Into the mundane mire collapse at length some day.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)She wanted to be pure. Was she pure?It is said that she was in a state of mental vacuity. But it is not certain that she was.Alas for substance like gold and jade!In the end it fell down into the mud.(B.S. Bonsall)

金陵十二钗图册判词 迎春(第五回)

子系中山狼,得志便猖狂。金闺花柳质,一载赴黄粱。(1)For husband she will have a mountain wolf,His object gained he ruthlessly berates her;Fair bloom, sweet willow in a golden bower,Too soon a rude awakening awaits her.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Paired with a brute like the wolf in the old fable,Who on his saviour turned when he was able,To cruelty not used, your gentle heart,Shall, in a twelvemonth only, break apart.(David Hawkes)(3)Thy mate is like a savage wolf prowling among the hills;His wish once gratified a haughty spirit his heart fills!Though fair thy form like flowers or willows in the golden moon,Upon the yellow beam to hang will shortly be its doom.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)He is a wolf of Chung-shan.When he attains his purpose he goes wild.Being in herself the flowering willow of the golden apartments,In a single year she goes to the yellow millet.(B.S. Bonsall)

金陵十二钗图册判词 香菱(第五回)

勘破三春景不长,缁衣顿改昔年妆。可怜绣户侯门女,独卧青灯古佛旁。(1)She sees through the transience of spring,Dark Buddhist robes replace her garments fine;Pity this child of a wealthy noble houseWho now sleeps alone by the dimly lit old shrine.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)When you see through the spring scene’s transient state,A nun’s black habit shall replace your own.Alas, that daughter of so great a houseBy Buddha’s altar lamp should sleep alone!(David Hawkes)(3)In light esteem thou hold’st the charms of the three springs for their short-liv’d fate;Thine attire of past years to lay aside thou chang’st, a Taoist dress to don;How sad, alas! Of a reputed house and noble kindred the scion,Alone, behold! She sleeps under a glimmering light, an old idol for mate.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)She perceives that the prospect of the three springs is not for long.Black silk robes suddenly change the dress of former years.Alas! A daughter from the women’s apartments of a nobleman’s house,Sleeps alone by the side of a blue lantern and the old Buddha.(B.S. Bonsall)

金陵十二钗图册判词 熙凤(第五回)

凡鸟偏从末世来,都知爱慕此生才。一从二令三人木,哭向金陵事更哀。(1)This bird appears when the world falls on evil times;None but admires her talents and her skill;First she complies, then commands, then is dismissed,Departing in tears to Jinling more wretched still.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)This phoenix in a bad time came;All praised her great ability.“Two” makes my riddle with a man and tree:Returning south in tears she met calamity.(David Hawkes)(3)When time ends, sure coincidence, the phoenix doth alight;The talents of this human form all know and living see,For first to yield she kens, then to control, and third genial to be;But sad to say, things in Chin Ling are in more sorry plight.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)The common bird unfortunately comes from a final generation.All know how to cherish the talents of this life.Ever since the second order and the thrice repeated divorce,She cries as she goes towards Chin-ling. The affair is very pitiable.(B.S. Bonsall)

金陵十二钗图册判词 巧姐(第五回)

势败休云贵,家亡莫论亲。偶因济刘氏,巧得遇恩人。(1)When fortune frowns, nobility means nothing;When a house is ruined, kinsmen turn unkind.Because of help given by chance to Granny Liu,In time of need she is lucky a friend to find.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)When power is lost, rank matters not a lot;When families fall, kinship must be forgot.Through a chance kindness to a country wifeDeliverance came for your afflicted life.(David Hawkes)(3)When riches will have flown will honours then avail?When ruin breaks your home, e’en relatives will fail!But sudden through the aid extended to Dame Liu,A friend in need fortune will make to rise for you.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)When influence is ruined speak no more of rank.When the House is destroyed talk not of relatives.Unexpectedly because she helped a woman of the village,In a wonderful manner she was able to meet a benefactress.(B.S. Bonsall)

金陵十二钗图册判词 李纨(第五回)

桃李春风结子完,到头谁似一盆兰。如冰水好空相妒,枉与他人作笑谈。(1)Peach and plum in spring winds finish seeding,Who can bloom like the orchid at last?Pure as ice and water she arouses envy,Vain the groundless taunts that are cast.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)The plum-tree bore her fruit after the rest,Yet, when all’s done, her Orchid was the best.Against your ice-pure nature all in vainThe tongues of envy wagged; you felt no pain.(David Hawkes)(3)What time spring wanes, then fades the bloom of peach as well as plum!Who ever can like a pot of the olea be winsome!With ice thy purity will vie, vain their envy will be!In vain a laughing-stock people will try to make of thee.(H. Bencraft Joly)

金陵十二钗图册判词 可卿(第五回)

情天情海幻情身,情既相逢必主淫。漫言不肖皆荣出,造衅开端实在宁。(1)Love boundless as sea and sky is but illusion;When lovers meet, lust must be king.Say not all evil comes from the Rong Mansion,Truly, disaster originates from the Ning.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Love was her sea, her sky; in such excessLove, meeting with its like, breeds wantonness.Say not our troubles all from Rong’s side came;For their beginning Ning must take the blame.(David Hawkes)(3)Love high as heav’n, love ocean-wide, thy lovely form will don;What time love will encounter love, license must rise wanton;Why hold that all impiety in Jung doth find its spring,The source of trouble, verily, is centred most in Ning.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)Love high as Heaven. Love vast as the sea. The illusions of love are profound.When lovers meet, licentiousness is sure to rule.It is widely said that those who were unworthy all came from Jung.The beginning of the offence was really in Ning.(B.S. Bonsall)

红楼梦引子(第五回)

开辟鸿蒙,谁为情种?都只为风月情浓。趁着这奈何天,伤怀日,寂寥时,试遣愚忠。因此上演出这怀金悼玉的“红楼梦”。(1)PROLOGUE TO THE DREAM OF RED MANSIONSAt the dawn of creationWho sowed the seeds of love?From the strong passion of breeze and moonlight they came.So in this world of sweet longingOn a day of distress, in an hour of loneliness,Fain would I impart my senseless griefBy singing this Dream of Red MansionsTo mourn the Gold and the Jade.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Prelude: A Dream of Golden DaysWhen first the world from chaos rose,Tell me, how did love begin?The wind and moonlight first did love compose.Now woebegoneAnd quite cast downIn low estateI would my foolish heart expose,And so performThis Dream of Golden Days,And all my grief for my lost loves disclose.(David Hawkes)(3)Preface of the Dream of the Red ChamberWhen the Heavens were opened and earth was laid out chaos prevailed,What was the germ of love?It arises entirely from the strength of licentious love.What day, by the will of heaven, I felt wounded at heart,And what time I was at leisure, I made an attempt to disburden my sad heart;And with this object in view I indited this Dream of the Bed Chamber,On the subject of a disconsolate gold trinket and an unfortunate piece of jade.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)The Prologue to the Red Chamber DreamOpen out the mystery.Whoever belong to the class of lovers,All of them merely because of the strength of their licentiousness,Set Heaven at naught and grieve the sun.In the time of their loneliness,They try to banish their foolish feelings.Because of this, we perform this Red Chamber Dream which expresses grief for gold and sorrow for jade.(B.S. Bonsall)

终身误(第五回)

都道是金玉良缘,俺只念木石前盟。空对着,山中高士晶莹雪,终不忘,世外仙姝寂寞林。叹人间,美中不足今方信。纵然是齐眉举案,到底意难平。(1)A LIFE MISSPENTWell-matched, all say, the gold and the jade;I alone recall the pledge between plant and stone.Vainly facing the hermit in sparkling snow-clad hillsI forget not the fairy in lone woods beyond the world.I sigh, learning that no man’s happiness is complete:Even a pair thought well-matchedMay find disappointment.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)The Mistaken MarriageLet others allCommend the marriage rites of gold and jade;I still recallThe bond of old by stone and flower made;And while my vacant eyes beholdCrystalline snows of beauty pure and cold,From my mind can not be banishedThat fairy wood forlorn that from the world has vanished.How true I findThat every good some imperfection bolds!Even a wife so courteous and so kindNo comfort’ brings to my afflicted mind.(David Hawkes)(3)Waste of a Whole LifetimeAll maintain that the match between gold and jade will be happy.All I can think of is the solemn oath contracted in days gone by by the plant and stone! Vain will I gaze upon the snow,Hsueeh, pure as crystal and lustrous like a gem of the eminent priest living among the hills!Never will I forget the noiseless Fairy Grove, Lin beyond the confines of the mortal world!Alas! Now only have I come to believe that human happiness is incomplete;And that a couple may be bound by the ties of wedlock for life,But that after all their hearts are not easy to lull into contentment.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)A Life-long MistakeAll say that gold and jade are a happy affinity.But think of the kermis covenant made between grove and stone.In vain does he stand in the presence of the high officer in the mountains in clear crystal snow.He never forgets the fairy beauty beyond the world-that quiet grove.I sigh because among the beauties of humankind there is not now one worthy of belief.Granted that they lift the bowl to the level of their eyebrows,After all, their minds are hard to tranquillize.(B.S. Bonsall)

枉凝眉(第五回)

一个是阆苑仙葩,一个是美玉无瑕。若说没奇缘,今生偏又遇着他;若说有奇缘,如何心事终虚化?一个枉自嗟呀,一个空劳牵挂;一个是水中月,一个是镜中花。想眼中能有多少泪珠儿,怎经得秋流到冬尽,春流到夏!(1)VAIN LONGINGOne is an immortal flower of fairyland,The other fair flawless jade,And were it not predestinedWhy should they meet again in this existence?Yet, if predestined,Why does their love come to nothing?One sighs to no purpose,The other yearns in vain;One is the moon reflected in the water,The other but a flower in the mirror.How many tears can well from her eyes?Can they flow on from autumn till winter,From spring till summer?(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Hope BetrayedOne was a flower from paradise,One a pure jade without spot or stain.If each for the other one was not intended,Then why in this life did they meet again?And yet if fate bad meant them for each other,Why was their earthly meeting all in vain?In vain were all her sighs and tears,In vain were all his anxious fears:All, insubstantial, doomed to pass,As moonlight mirrored in the waterOr flowers reflected in a glass.Row many tears from those poor eyes could flow,Which every season rained upon her woe?(David Hawkes)(3)Vain knitting of the browsThe one is a spirit flower of Fairyland;The other is a beautiful jade without a blemish.Do you maintain that their union will not be remarkable?Why how then is it that he has come to meet her again in this existence?If the union will you say, be strange, how is it then that their love affair will be but empty words?The one in her loneliness will give way to useless sighs.The other in vain will yearn and crave.The one will be like the reflection of the moon in water;The other likes a flower reflected in a mirror.Consider, how many drops of tears can there be in the eyes?And how could they continue to drop from autumn to winter and from spring to flow till summer time?(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)In Vain Stiffen the EyebrowsOne is parkland’s fairy flower.One is the excellent jade without a flaw.If you say there is no wonderful affinity,Yet in this life she meets him.If you say there is a wonderful affinity,How is it that the affair of their hearts is in the end but empty words?One in vain sighs to herself for him.One to no purpose is anxious and in suspense.One is the moon in the water.One is the flower in the mirror.How many pearly tears do you think eyes can contain?How endure to flow from autumn to winter,And to flow from spring to summer?(B.S. Bonsall)

恨无常 元春(第五回)

喜荣华正好,恨无常又到。眼睁睁把万事全抛。荡悠悠,把芳魂消耗。望家乡,路远山高。故向爹娘梦里相寻告:儿命已入黄泉,天伦呵,须要退步抽身早!(1)THE TRANSIENCE OF LIFEAt the height of honour and splendourDeath comes for her;Open-eyed, she has to leave everything behindAs her gentle soul passes away.So far her home beyond the distant mountainsThat in a dream she finds and tells her parents:Your child has gone now to the Yellow Spring;You must find a retreat before it is too late.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)MutabilityIn the full flower of her prosperityOnce more came mortal mutability,Bidding her, with both eyes wide,All earthly things to cast aside,And her sweet soul upon the airs to glide.So far the road back home did seemThat to her parents in a dreamThus she her final duty paid:“I that now am but a shade,Parents dear,For your happiness I fear:Do not tempt the hand of fate!Draw back, draw back, before it is too late!”(David Hawkes)(3)Despicable Spirit of DeathYou will be rejoicing that glory is at its height when hateful death will come once again,And with eyes wide with horror, you will discard all things,And dimly and softly the fragrant spirit will waste and dissolve!

You will yearn for native home, but distant will be the way, and lofty the mountains.Hence it is that you will betake yourself in search of father and mother,While they lie under the influence of a dream, and hold discourse with them.“Your child,” you will say, “has already trodden the path of death!Oh my parents, it behoves you to speedily retrace your steps and make good your escape!”(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)Grief Because of DeathShe rejoices that her prosperity is indeed good.She grieves that death also arrives.With wide-open eyes she casts all other matters completely away.In the vast unknown her fragrant spirit is consumed.She looks towards her homeland. The road is long. The mountains are high.Therefore she seeks her father and mother in a dream and says:Your child’s life has already entered the Yellow Spring.You to whom I am bound by a heavenly relationship,Should withdraw your footsteps and snatch yourselves away soon.(B.S. Bonsall)

分骨肉 探春(第五回)

一帆风雨路三千,把骨肉家园,齐来抛闪。恐哭损残年,告爹娘,休把儿悬念。自古穷通皆有定,离合岂无缘?从今分两地,各自保平安。奴去也,莫牵连。(1)SEPARATION FROM DEAR ONESThree thousand li she must sail through wind and rain,Giving up her home and her own flesh and blood;But afraid to distress their declining years with tearsShe tells her parents: Don’t grieve for your child.From of old good luck and bad have been predestined,Partings and reunions are decreed by fate;Although from now on we shall dwell far apart,Let us still live at peace;Don’t worry over your unworthy daughter.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)From Dear Ones PartedSail, boat, a thousand miles through rain and wind,Leaving my home and dear ones far behind.I fear that my remaining yearsWill waste away in homesick tears.Father dear and mother mild,Be not troubled for your child!From of old our rising, fallingWas ordained; so now this parting.Each in another land must be;Each for himself must fend as best he may;Now I am gone, oh. Do not weep for me!(David Hawkes)(3)Separated from RelativesYou will speed on a journey of three thousand li at the mercy of wind and rain,And tear yourself from all your family ties and your native home!Your fears will be lest anguish should do any harm to your parents in their failing years!“Father and mother,” you will bid them, “do not think with any anxiety of your child.From ages past poverty as well as success have both had a fixed destiny;And is it likely that separation and reunion are not subject to predestination?Though we may now be far apart in two different places,We must each of us try and preserve good cheer.Your abject child has, it is true, gone from home,But abstain from distressing yourselves on her account!”(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)Separate Flesh and BoneA sail in wind and rain on a journey of three thousand li.

Taking bone and flesh, home and garden, and throwing them all aside.She fears they will spoil the evening of their life by sweeping.She tells her father and mother: be not in anxious suspense about your child.From ancient times failure and success have all been fixed.Can it be that parting and meeting are without a cause?From now we divide into two places. Each preserves each one’s peace.Your slave is going away. Do not hold me back.(B.S. Bonsall)

乐中悲 湘云(第五回)

襁褓中,父母叹双亡。纵居那绮罗丛,谁知娇养?幸生来,英豪阔大宽宏量,从未将儿女私情略萦心上。好一似,霁月光风耀玉堂。厮配得才貌仙郎,博得个地久天长,准折得幼年时坎坷形状。终久是云散高唐,水涸湘江。这是尘寰中消长数应当,何必枉悲伤!(1)SORROW AMIDST JOYShe is still in her cradle when her parents die,Although living in luxury who will dote on her?Happily she is born too courageous and open-heartedEver to take a love affair to heart.Like bright moon and fresh breeze in a hall of jadeShe is matched with a talented and handsome husband;May she live with him for long yearsTo make up for her wretched childhood!But over the Gaotang Tower the clouds disperse,The river Xiang runs dry.This is the common fate of mortal men,Useless it is to repine.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Grief Amidst GladnessWhile you still in cradle lay,Both your parents passed away.Though born to silken luxury,No warmth or kind indulgence came your way.Yet yours was a generous, open-hearted nature,And never could be snared or souredBy childish piques and envious passions-You were a crystal house by wind and moonlight scoured.Matched to a perfect, gentle husband,Security of bliss at last it seemed,And all your childish miseries redeemed.But soon alas! The clouds of Gaotang faded,The waters of the Xiang ran dry.In our grey world so are things always ordered:What then avails it to lament and sigh?(David Hawkes)(3)Sorrow in the Midst of JoyWhile wrapped as yet in swaddling clothes,Alas! Father and mother, both alas! Will depart,And dwell though you will in that mass of gauze,Who is there who will know how to spoil you with any fond attention?Born you will be fortunately with ample moral courage,And high-minded and boundless resources,For your parents will not have, in the least, their child’s secret feelings at heart!You will be like a moon appearing to view when the rain holds up, shedding its rays upon the Jade Hall or a gentle breeze (wafting its breath upon it).Wedded to a husband, fairy like fair and accomplished, you will enjoy a happiness enduring as the earth and perennial as the Heavens!And you will be the means of snapping asunder the bitter fate of your youth!But, after all, the clouds will scatter in Kao T’ang and the waters of the Hsiang river will get parched!This is the inevitable destiny of dissolution and continuance which prevails in the mortal world, and what need is there to indulge in useless grief?(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)Sorrow in JoyWhen she was in swaddling clothes, alas! Her father and mother both died.Although she does indeed dwell in that grove of variegated silk, who knows how to spoil her with fond attention?Fortunately she was born a heroine, vast her capacity for moral courage.And hitherto had not entwined the private love of boy and girl even to a slight degree around her heart.Just as when the moon is in a clear sky, the light and the breeze make bright the hall of jade.For a match she gets a divinely talented and handsome husband.For extent she gets duration as of Heaven and Earth,To make up for the circumstances of ill-fortune in her childhood.In the end the clouds scatter at Kao-t’ang,The waters of the river Hsiang dry up.These are the vicissitudes in the sphere of human affairs ordained by destiny.Why be grieved in vain?(B.S. Bonsall)

世难容 妙玉(第五回)

气质美如兰,才华馥比仙。天生成孤癖人皆罕。你道是啖肉食腥膻,视绮罗俗厌;却不知太高人愈妒,过洁世同嫌。可叹这青灯古殿人将老,辜负了红粉朱楼春色阑。到头来,依旧是风尘肮脏违心愿。好一似,无瑕白玉遭泥陷,又何须王孙公子叹无缘。(1)SPURNED BY THE WORLDBy nature fair as an orchid,With talents to match an immortal,Yet so eccentric that all marvel at her.To her, rich food stinks,Silken raiment is vulgar and loathsome;She knows not that superiority fosters hatred,For the world despises too much purity.By the dim light of an old shrine she will fade away,Her powder and red chamber, her youth and beauty wasted,To end, despite herself, defiled on the dusty road.Even as flawless white jade dropped in the mud.In vain young scions of noble houses will sigh for her.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)All at OddsHeaven made you like a flower,With grace and wit to match the gods,Adding a strange, contrary natureThat set you with the test at odds.Nauseous to you the world’s rank diet,Vulgar its fashion’s gaudy dress:But the world envies the superiorAnd hates a too precious daintiness.Sad it seemed that your life should in dim-lit shrines be wasted,All the sweets of spring untasted:Yet, at the last,Down into mud and shame your hopes were cast,Like a white, flawless jade dropped in the muck,Where only wealthy rakes might bless their luck.(David Hawkes)(3)Intolerable to the worldYour figure will be as winsome as an olea fragrant;Your talents as ample as those of a Fairy!You will by nature be so haughty that of the whole human race few will be like you! You will look upon a meat diet as one of dirt, and treat splendour as coarse and loathsome!And yet you will not be aware that your high notions will bring upon you the excessive hatred of man!You will be very eager in your desire after chastity, but the human race will despise you!Alas, you will wax old in that antique temple hall under a faint light, where you will waste ungrateful for beauty, looks and freshness!But after all you will still be worldly, corrupt and unmindful of your vows;Just like a spotless white jade you will be whose fate is to fall into the mire!And what need will there be for the grandson of a prince or the son of a duke to deplore that his will not be the good fortune (of winning your affections)?(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)The World Hardly ToleratesA physique beautiful as an orchid.The flower of her talents as fragrant as an Immortal.The eccentric ones whom Heaven produces-men all regard as rare.You say that to eat flesh is to feed on what is rank-smelling.You look upon variegated silk as common and loathsome.But you do not know that if one is fond of high position people envy one all the more.If one is excessively pure the world unites to dislike one.Alas! This person by the blue lamp in the ancient temple will soon be old,Wasting ungratefully female beauty, rich houses, and Springtime gaiety.To bring it to a head, as of old, the filth of mortal affairs is contrary to the desires of her heart.It is just as a white jade without flaw sunk in the mire.And why should the young gentleman of royal descent sigh that there is no affinity?(B.S. Bonsall)

喜冤家 迎春(第五回)

中山狼,无情兽,全不念当日根由。一味的骄奢淫荡贪欢媾。觑着那侯门艳质同蒲柳,作践的公府千金似下流。叹芳魂艳魄,一载荡悠悠。(1)UNION OF ENEMIESA mountain wolf, a savage ruthless beast,Mindless of past obligationsGives himself up to pride, luxury and license,Holding cheap the charms of a noble family’s daughter,Trampling on the precious child of a ducal mansion.Alas, in less than a year her sweet soul fades away.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Husband and EnemyZhong-shan wolf,Inhuman sot,Who for past kindnesses cared not a jot!Bully and spendthrift, reckless in debauch,For riot or for whoring always hot!A delicate young wife of gentle stockTo you was no more than a lifeless block,And bore, when you would rant and rave,Treatment fat worse than any slave;So that her delicate, sweet soulIn just a twelvemonth from its body stole.(David Hawkes)(3)The VoluptuaryYou will resemble a wolf in the mountains!A savage beast devoid of all human feeling!Regardless in every way of the obligations of days gone by, your sole pleasure will be in the indulgence of haughtiness, extravagance, licentiousness and dissolute habits!You will be inordinate in your conjugal affections,And look down upon the beautiful charms of the child of a marquis, as if they were cat-tail rush or willow;Trampling upon the honourable daughter of a ducal mansion, as if she were one of the common herd.Pitiful to say, the fragrant spirit and beauteous ghost will in a year softly and gently pass away!(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)The House Which Delights in InjusticeThe wolf of Chung-shan, a beast without feeling,Does not think at all of her origin in the past.He is utterly proud, extravagant, licentious, and dissolute, greedy for the pleasure of sexual intercourse.He looks on that beautiful creature belonging to an aristocratic House as if she were a rush or a willow,The oppressed beautiful girl of the ducal House as if she were low class.Alas! The fragrant spirit, the beautiful soul. In one year it has gone to the vast unknown.(B.S. Bonsall)

虚花悟 惜春(第五回)

将那三春看破,桃红柳绿待如何?把这韶华灯灭,觅那清淡天和。说什么天上夭桃盛,云中杏蕊多,到头来谁把秋捱过?则看那白杨村里人呜咽,青枫林下鬼吟哦,更兼着连天衰草遮坟墓。这的是昨贫今富人劳碌,春荣秋谢花折磨。似这般生关死劫谁能躲?闻说道西方宝树唤婆娑,上结着长生果。(1)PERCEPTION OF THE TRANSIENCE OF FLOWERSShe will see through the three SpringsAnd set no storeBy the red of peach-blossom, the green of willows,Stamping out the fire of youthful splendourTo savour the limpid peace of a clear sky.Though the peach runs riot against the sky,Though the clouds teem with apricot blossom,Who has seen any flower that can win safely through autumn?Even now mourners are lamenting by groves of poplars,Ghosts are wailing below green maples,And the weeds above their graves stretch to the skyline.Truly, changes in fortune are the cause of men’s toil,Spring blooming and autumn withering the fate of flowers.Who can escape the gate of birth, the fate of death?Yet in the west, they say, grows the sal treeWhich bears the fruit of immortality.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)The Vanity of SpringWhen triple spring as vanity was seen,What use the blushing flowers, the willows green?From youth’s extravagance you sought releaseTo win chaste quietness and heavenly peace.The hymeneal peach-blooms in the sky,The flowering almond’s blossoms seen on highDismiss, since none, for sure,Can autumn’s blighting frost endure.Amidst sad aspens mourners sob and sigh,In maple woods the poor ghosts thinly cry,And under the dead grasslands lost graves lie.Now poor, now rich, men’s lives in toil are passedTo be, like summer’s pride, cut down at last.The doors of life and death all must go through.Yet this I know is true:In Paradise there grows a precious treeWhich bears the fruit of immortality.(David Hawkes)(3)The Perception that all things are transient like flowersYou will look lightly upon the three springs and regard the blush of the peach and the green of the willow as of no avail.You will beat out the fire of splendour, and treat solitary retirement as genial!What is it that you say about the delicate peaches in the heavens (marriage) being excellent, and the petals of the almond in the clouds being plentiful (children)?Let him who has after all seen one of them (really a mortal being), go safely through the autumn (wade safely through old age), behold the people in the white Poplar village groan and sigh; and the spirits under the green maple whine and moan!Still more wide in expanse than even the heavens is the dead vegetation which covers the graves!The moral is this, that the burden of man is poverty one day and affluence another;That bloom in spring, and decay in autumn, constitute the doom of vegetable life!In the same way, this calamity of birth and the visitation of death, who is able to escape?But I have heard it said that there grows in the western quarter a tree called the P’o So (Patient Bearing) which bears the fruit of Immortal life!(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)Understanding the Feeble FlowersTake those three months of Spring and investigate them thoroughly.Peach red, willow green, what are they going to be like?Take this splendor and beat it to destruction.Search for that clear, pure, heavenly harmony.Do you say that up in some Heaven the tender peaches are luxuriant,In the midst of the clouds the buds of the apricot are many?To bring it to a head, who sees them endure the Autumn?Then look. The people in White Aspen Village sob.Beneath the grove of green maple trees the Spirits moan.Moreover, day after day the withered grass covers the tombs.This is, men once poor now rich labor and toil.In Spring flourishing, in Autumn fading, flowers are roughly treated.In this fashion, the gateway of birth, the robbery of death, who can avoid?I have heard it said that in the West there is a precious tree called P’o-so,On which is formed the fruit of long life.(B.S. Bonsall)

聪明累 凤姐(第五回)

机关算尽太聪明,反算了卿卿性命。生前心已碎,死后性空灵。家富人宁,终有个家亡人散各奔腾。枉费了意悬悬半世心,好一似荡悠悠三更梦。忽喇喇似大厦倾,昏惨惨似灯将尽。呀!一场欢喜忽悲辛。叹人世终难定!(1)RUINED BY CUNNINGToo much cunning in plotting and schemingIs the cause of her own undoing;While yet living her heart is brokenAnd after death all her subtlety comes to nothing.A rich house, all its members at peace,Is ruined at last and scattered;In vain her anxious thought for half a lifetime,For like a disturbing dream at dead of night,Like the thunderous collapse of a great mansion,Or the flickering of a lamp that gutters out,Mirth is suddenly changed to sorrow.Ah, nothing is certain in the world of men.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Caught By Her Own CunningToo shrewd by half, with such finesse you wroughtThat your own life in your own toils was caught;But long before you died your heart was slain,And when you died your spirit walked in vain.Fall’n the great house once so secure in wealth,Each scattered member shifting for himself;And half a life-time’s anxious schemesProved no more than the stuff of dreams.Like a great building’s tottering crash,Like flickering lampwick burned to ash,Your scene of happiness concludes in grief:For worldly bliss is always insecure and brief.(David Hawkes)(3)The bane of IntelligenceYours will be the power to estimate, in a thorough manner, the real motives of all things, as yours will be intelligence of an excessive degree;But instead (of reaping any benefit) you will cast the die of your own existence!The heart of your previous life is already reduced to atoms, and when you shall have died, your nature will have been intelligent to no purpose!Your home will be in easy circumstances; your family will enjoy comforts;But your connexions will, at length, fall a prey to death, and the inmates of your family scatter, each one of you speeding in a different direction, making room for others!In vain, you will have harassed your mind with cankering thoughts for half a lifetime;For it will be just as if you had gone through the confused mazes of a dream on the third watch!Sudden a crash (will be heard) like the fall of a spacious palace, and a dusky gloominess (will supervene) such as is caused by a lamp about to spend itself!Alas! A spell of happiness will be suddenly (dispelled by) adversity!Woe is man in the world! For his ultimate doom is difficult to determine!(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)The Entanglements of IntelligenceIn calculating completely the inner working of things she is too intelligent.And this on the contrary accounts for the dear of one’s life.While still alive, her heart was already broken.After death, her nature is that of an empty ghost.The House was rich. The people were at ease.In the end there is a ruined home with the people scattered, each making haste to remove.In vain she exerts her mind, her heart in suspense for half a generation.Just as in a vague dream of the third watch,Suddenly there is a noise like a great mansion in collapse,A confusion of grief, like a lamp almost used up.Ah! A scene of pleasure suddenly changes into the bitterness of grief!I sigh for the generations of men. Their end is hard to fix.(B.S. Bonsall)

留馀庆 巧姐(第五回)

留馀庆,留馀庆,忽遇恩人;幸娘亲,幸娘亲,积得阴功。劝人生济困扶穷,休似俺那爱银钱忘骨肉的狠舅奸兄。正是乘除加减,上有苍穹。(1)A LITTLE ACT OF KINDNESSThanks to one small act of kindnessShe meets by chance a grateful friend;Fortunate that her motherHas done some unnoticed good.Men should rescue the distressed and aid the poor,Be not like her heartless uncle or treacherous cousinWho for love of money forget their own flesh and blood.Truly, rewards and punishmentsAre meted out by Heaven.  (杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)The SurvivorSome good remained,Some good remained:The daughter found a friend in needThrough her mother’s one good deed.So let all men the poor and meek sustain,And from the example of her cruel kin refrain,Who kinship scorned and only thought of gain.For far above the constellationsOne watches all and makes just calculations.(David Hawkes)(3)Leave behind a residue of happinessHand down an excess of happiness;Hand down an excess of happiness!Unexpectedly you will come across a benefactor!Fortunate enough your mother, your own mother, will have laid by a store of virtue and secret meritorious actions!My advice to you, mankind, is to relieve the destitute and succour the distressed!Do not resemble those who will harp after lucre and show themselves unmindful of the ties of relationship: that wolflike maternal uncle of yours and that impostor of a brother!True it is that addition and subtraction, increase and decrease, (reward and punishment,) rest in the hands of Heaven above!(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)Leave a Residue of HappinessLeave a residue of happiness! Leave a residue of happiness!Suddenly she meets a benefactress.Fortunate mother! Fortunate mother!She has stored up secret merit.Exhort mankind to help those in distress and support those who are poor.Be not like that wolfish uncle and evil elder brother of ours who love money and forget flesh and bones.It is indeed a case that multiply, divide, add, and subtract,Above is the azure vault.(B.S. Bonsall)

晚韶华 李纨(第五回)

镜里恩情,更那堪梦里功名!那美韶华去之何迅!再休提绣帐鸳衾。只这戴珠冠,披凤袄,也抵不了无常性命。虽说是,人生莫受老来贫,也须要阴骘积儿孙。气昂昂头戴簪缨,光灿灿胸悬金印,威赫赫爵禄高登,昏惨惨黄泉路近!问古来将相可还存?也只是虚名儿与后人钦敬。(1)SPLENDOUR COMES TOO LATELove is only a reflection in a mirror,Worse still, rank and fame are nothing but a dream,So quickly youth and beauty fade away.Say no more of embroidered curtains and love-bird quilts,Nor can a pearl tiara and phoenix jacketStave off for long Death’s summons.Though it is said that old age should be free from want,This depends on the unknown merits laid by for one’s children.Jubilant in official headdressAnd glittering with a gold seal of high office,A man may be awe-inspiring and exalted,But the gloomy way to the Yellow Spring is near.What remains of the generals and statesmen of old?Nothing but an empty name admired by posterity.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Splendour Comes LateFavour, a shadow in the glass;Fame, a dream that soon would pass:The blissful flowering-time of youth soon fled,Soon, too, the pleasures of the bridal bed.A pearl-encrusted crown and robes of stateCould not for death untimely compensate;And though each man desiresOld age from want made free,True blessedness requiresA clutch of young heirs at the knee.Proudly uprightThe head with cap and hands of office on,And gleaming brightUpon his breast the gold insignia shone.An awesome sightTo see him so exalted stand! -Yet the black nightOf death’s dark frontier lay close at hand.All those whom history calls greatLeft only empty names for us to venerate.(David Hawkes)(3)Splendour at lastLoving affection in a mirror will be still more ephemeral than fame in a dream.That fine splendour will fleet how soon!Make no further allusion to embroidered curtain, to bridal coverlet;For though you may come to wear on your head a pearl-laden coronet,And, on your person, a jacket ornamented with phoenixes, yours will not

nevertheless be the means to atone for the short life (of your husband)!Though the saying is that mankind should not have, in their old age, the burden of poverty to bear,Yet it is also essential that a store of benevolent deeds should be laid up for the benefit of sons and grandsons!(Your son) May come to be dignified in appearanceAnd wear on his head the official tassel,And on his chest may be suspended the gold seal resplendent in lustre;He may be imposing in his majesty, and he may rise high in status and emoluments,But the dark and dreary way which leads to death is short!Are the generals and ministers who have been from ages of old still in the flesh, forsooth?They exist only in a futile name handed down to posterity to reverence!(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)SplendorAffection in the mirror,

Even more so that meritorious reputation about which one may dream,That excellent splendor, how quickly it goes!Mention not again the embroidered curtain, the nuptial coverlet.But this wearing of the pearl-adorned cap and phoenix jacketAlso cannot withstand the changes of life.Although it is said that men should not suffer poverty coming with old age,They must also want descendants as the blessing which accrues to secret merit.Full of confidence, on their heads wearing red tassels fastened to their official hats,Gleaming bright the golden seal hanging on their breast,Majestic and awe-inspiring, rank and emoluments of high degree,They are confused with grief; the road to the Yellow Spring is nigh.Ask if from ancient times until now generals and ministers of State still remain.There is only an empty name and the reverence of men of later times.(B.S. Bonsall)

好事终 可卿(第五回)

画梁春尽落香尘。擅风情,秉月貌,便是败家的根本。箕裘颓堕皆从敬,家事消亡首罪宁。宿孽总因情!(1)GOOD THINGS COME TO AN ENDFragrant dust falls from painted beams at the close of spring;By nature passionate and fair as the moon,The true root is she of the family’s destruction.The decline of the old tradition starts with Jing,The chief blame for the House’s ruin rests with Ning.All their sins come about through Love.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)The Good Things Have An EndPerfumed was the dust that fellFrom painted beams where springtime ended.Her sportive heartAnd amorous looksThe ruin of a mighty house portended.The weakness in the line began with Jing;The blame for the decline lay first in Ning;But retribution all was of Love’s fashioning.(David Hawkes)(3)Death ensues when things propitious reignUpon the ornamented beam will settle at the close of spring the fragrant dust!Your reckless indulgence of licentious love and your naturally moonlike face will soon be the source of the ruin of a family.The decadence of the family estate will emanate entirely from Ching;While the wane of the family affairs will be entirely attributable to the fault of Ning!Licentious love will be the main reason of the long-standing grudge.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)The End of ProspectsOn the painted beam at the end of Spring settles the fragrant dust.Presuming on a dissolute disposition. Endowed with a moon-shaped face.This is the root of the family’s ruin.That the family tradition is overthrown all follows Ching.The affairs of the family are utterly ruined. The chief offender is Ning.The predestined retribution is all because of licentious love.(B.S. Bonsall)

收尾·飞鸟各投林(第五回)

为官的,家业凋零;富贵的,金银散尽;有恩的,死里逃生;无情的,分明报应;欠命的,命已还;欠泪的,泪已尽。冤冤相报实非轻,分离聚合皆前定。欲知命短问前生,老来富贵也真侥幸。看破的,遁入空门;痴迷的,枉送了性命。好一似食尽鸟投林,落了片白茫茫大地真干净!(1)EPILOGUE: THE BIRDS SCATFER TO THE WOODAn official household declines,Rich nobles’ wealth is spent.She who did god escapes the jaws of death,The heartless meet with certain retribution.Those who took a life have paid with their own lives,The tears one owed have all been requited in kind.Not light the retribution for sins against others;All are predestined, partings and reunions.Seek the cause of untimely death in a part existence,Lucky she who enjoys rank and riches in old age;Those who see through the world escape from the world,While foolish lovers forfeit their lives for nothing.When the food is gone the birds return to the wood;All that’s left is emptiness and a great void.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Epilogue: The Birds Into The Wood Have FlownThe office jack’s career is blighted,The rich man’s fortune now all vanished,The kind with life have been requited,The cruel exemplarily punished;The one who owed a life is dead,The tears one owed have all been shed.Wrongs suffered have the wrongs done expiated;The couplings and the sunderings were fated.Untimely death sin in some past life shows,But only luck a blest old age bestows.The disillusioned to their convents fly,The still deluded miserably die.Like birds who, having fed, to the woods repair,They leave the landscape desolate and bare.(David Hawkes)(3)The flying birds each perch upon the treesThe family estates of those in official positions will fade!The gold and silver of the rich and honored will be scattered!Those who will have conferred benefit will, even in death, find the means of escape!Those devoid of human feelings will reap manifest retribution!Those indebted for a life will make, in due time, payment with their lives;Those indebted for tears have already (gone) to exhaust their tears!Mutual injuries will be revenged in no light manner!Separation and reunion will both alike be determined by predestination!You wish to know why your life will be short; look into your previous existence!Verily, riches and honours, which will come with old age, will likewise be a question of chance!Those who will hold the world in light esteem will retire within the gate of abstraction;While those who will be allured by enticement will have forfeited their lives (The Chia family will fulfill its destiny) as surely as birds take to the trees after they have exhausted all they had to eat,And which as they drop down will pile up a hoary, vast and lofty heap of dust, (leaving) indeed a void behind!(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)The Flying Birds All Betake Themselves to the GroveHe who was an official, his family affairs are like fallen leaves.He who had wealth and rank, his gold and silver are completely scattered.He who showed kindness, is the midst death fleeing to life.He who had no affection is clearly recompensed.He who owed a life, the life is already returned.She who owed tears, her tears are already completed.Grievances repaying each other of course are not light.Separations and meetings are all foreordained.If you want to know whether your life will be short, ask concerning the previous life.If old age comes with wealth and rank, that is of a truth good fortune.Those who see through this retire into the Gate of Vacancy.Those who are foolishly deceived, in vain have given their lives away.Just as when, having finished eating, the birds betake themselves to the grove,Having left below a vast empty space eaten really clean.(B.S. Bonsall)

青埂峰顽石诗(第八回)

女娲炼石已荒唐,又向荒唐演大荒。失去幽灵真境界,幻来亲就臭皮囊。好知运败金无彩,堪叹时乖玉不光。白骨如山忘姓氏,无非公子与红妆。(1)Fantastic, Nu Wa’s smelting of the stone,Now comes fresh fantasy from the Great Waste;The Stone’s true sphere and spirit lost,It takes a new form stinking and debased.Know that when fortune frowns, pure gold is dulled,And jade, in evil times, will cease to shine;Heaped high the white bones of the nameless dead,Who in their day were lords and ladies fine.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Nü-wa’s stone-smelting is a tale unfounded:On such weak fancies our Great Fable’s grounded.Lost now, alack! And gone my heavenly stone-Transformed to this vile bag of flesh and bone.For, in misfortune, gold no longer gleams;And bright jade, when fate frowns, lack-lustre seems.Heaped charnel-bones none can identifyWere golden girls and boys in days gone by.(David Hawkes)(3)Nue Wo’s fusion of stones was e’er a myth inane,But from this myth hath sprung fiction still more insane!Lost is the subtle life, divine, and real!-gone!Assumed, mean subterfuge! Foul bags of skin and bone!Fortune, when once adverse, how true! Gold glows no more!In evil days, alas! The jade’s splendour is o’er!Bones, white and bleached, in nameless hill-like mounds are flung,Bones once of youths renowned and maidens fair and young.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)It was already wildly impossible that Nü-kua should melt the stones.We turn again to the wildly impossible and tell of the great illusion.Having lost its original appearance,It comes miraculously and for the first time approaches a putrid sack of skin.Know well that when one’s fate is ruined gold has no brilliance.How sad! When the times are evil gems have no lustre.Bleached bones like a mountain. Their names are forgotten.No other than young gentlemen and unmarried girls!(B.S. Bonsall)

翼然亭 宝玉(第十七回)

绕堤柳借三篙翠,隔岸花分一脉香。(1)Willows on the dyke lend their verdancy to three punts;Flowers on the further shore spare a breath of fragrance.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Three pole-thrust lengths of bankside willows green,One fragrant breath of bankside flowers sweet.(David Hawkes)(3)The willows, which enclose the shore, the green borrow from three bamboos;On banks apart, the flowers asunder grow, yet one perfume they give.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)The willow trees on the encircling dyke lend three poles of green.The flowers on the opposite banks share in one strain of fragrance.(B.S. Bonsall)

有凤来仪 宝玉(第十七回)

宝鼎茶闲烟尚绿,幽窗棋罢指犹凉。(1)Still green the smoke from tea brewed in a rare tripod;Yet cold the fingers from chess played by quiet window.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)From the empty cauldron the steam still rises after the brewing of tea.By the darkening window the fingers are still cold after the game of Go.(David Hawkes)(3)In the precious tripod kettle, tea is brewed, but green is still the smoke!O’er is the game of chess by the still window, but the fingers are yet cold.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)The precious tripod, tea and leisure. The smoke is yet green.The dark window, chess is finished. The finger is still cold.(B.S. Bonsall)

杏帘在望 宝玉(第十七回)

新涨绿添浣葛处,好云香护采芹人。(1)The green tide fills the creek where clothes are washed;Clouds of fragrance surround the girls plucking water-cress.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Emergent buds swell where the washerwoman soaks her cloth.A fresh tang rises where the cress-gatherer fills his pannier.(David Hawkes)(3)A spot in which the “Ko” fibre to bleach, as the fresh tide doth swell the waters green!A beauteous halo and a fragrant smell the man encompass who the cress did pluck!(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)The fresh green rises and increasingly bathes the place where the creepers grow.The good clouds with their fragrance protect the men who gather the cress.(B.S. Bonsall)

蘅芜苑题联一 清客(第十七回)

麝兰芳霭斜阳院,杜若香飘明月洲。(1)Fragrance of musk-orchids fills the court at dusk,Scent of alpinia floats to the moonlit island.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)A musky perfume of orchids hangs in the sunset courtyard.A sweet aroma of galingale floats over the moonlit island.(David Hawkes)(3)The musk-like epidendrum smell enshrouds the court, where shines the sun with oblique beams;The iris fragrance is wafted over the isle illumined by the moon’s clear rays.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)Orchid musk, fragrant clouds in the slanting sunrays courtyard.Tu-jo scent, blown hither and thither in the bight moon islet.(B.S. Bonsall)

蘅芜苑题联二 清客(第十七回)

三径香风飘玉蕙,一庭明月照金兰。(1)Along three paths white angelica scents the breeze,In the court a bright moon shines on golden orchids.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Down garden walks a fragrant breeze caresses beds of melilot.By courtyard walls a brilliant moon illumines golden orchises.(David Hawkes)(3)Along the three pathways doth float the Yue Hui scented breeze!The radiant moon in the whole hall shines on the gold orchid!(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)On the three paths the fragrant breeze blows hither and thither the jade-like marsh-orchid.In the one hall the bright moon shines upon the golden orchid.(B.S. Bonsall)

蘅芜苑题联三 宝玉(第十七回)

吟成豆蔻才犹艳,睡足酴醾梦也香。(1)Singing on cardamoms makes lovely poetry;Sleeping beneath roses induces sweet dreams.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Composing amidst cardamoms, you shall make verses like flowers.Slumbering amidst the roses, you shall dream fragrant dreams.(David Hawkes)(3)Sung is the nutmeg song, but beauteous still is the sonnet!Near the T’u Mei to sleep, makes e’en a dream with fragrance full!(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)A composition on the nutmeg, the poem also is fascinating.Sleep full of t’u-mi, the dream too is fragrant.(B.S. Bonsall)

行宫赋(第十八回)

金门玉户神仙府,桂殿兰宫妃子家。(1)An abode with golden gates and jade doors fit for immortals,Its cassia and orchid chambers a worthy setting for the Imperial Consort.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)The abode of the Princess has cassia halls and orchid chambers.(David Hawkes)(3)The gold-like doors and the windows like jade were suggestive of the abode of spirits;While the halls made of cinnamon wood and the palace of magnolia timber, of the very homes of the imperial secondary consorts.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)Golden gate, jade door, the mansion the Immortals.Cassia hall, orchid palace, the home of the Concubine.(B.S. Bonsall)

顾恩思义(第十八回)

天地启宏慈,赤子苍头同感戴;古今垂旷典,九州万国被恩荣。(1)Compassion vast as the universe extends to old and young,Grace unknown before honours every state and land.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)For all earth to share, his great compassion has been extended, that children and humble folk may gratefully rejoice.For all ages to admire, his noble institutions have been promoted, that people of every land and clime may joyfully exult.(David Hawkes)(3)Mercy excessive Heaven and earth display,And it men young and old hail gratefully;From old till now they pour their bounties greatThose rich gifts which Cathay and all states permeate.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)Heaven and Earth open up vast compassion.Little children and living things are together moved to honor them.In ancient and modern times they let drop their far-reaching favor.The nine Provinces and ten thousand States are covered with graciously bestowed glory.(B.S. Bonsall)

题大观园 元春(第十八回)

衔山抱水建来精,多少功夫始筑成!天上人间诸景备,芳园应赐大观名。(1)Enfolding hills and streams laid out with skill,What labour went to build this pleasure ground!For these, the finest sights of earth and heaven,Not fitter name than “Grand View” can be found.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Embracing hills and streams, with skill they wrought:Their work at last is to perfection brought.Earth’s fairest prospects all are here installed,So “Prospect Garden” let its name be called!(David Hawkes)(3)Hills it enclasps, embraces streams, with skill it is laid out;What task the grounds to raise! The works to start and bring about!Of scenery in heaven and amongst men store has been made;The name Broad Vista o’er the fragrant park should be engraved.(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)Hills in its mouth, water in its embrace, it is built up with skill.With how much work the structure is first completed!In Heaven above and among men, the whole scene is prepared.The fragrant Garden ought to be given the name Great View.(B.S. Bonsall)

旷性怡情 迎春(第十八回)

园成景备特精奇,奉命羞题额旷怡。谁信世间有此景,游来宁不畅神思?(1)REFRESHING THE HEARTLandscapes strange and rare here we find:Bashfully, at the word of command, I take up my pen;Who dreamed of such loveliness in the world of men?A stroll through these grounds refreshes heart and mind.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Heart’s EaseThe garden finished, all its prospects please.Bidden to write, I name this spot “Heart’s Ease”.Who would have thought on earth such scenes to findAs here refresh the heart and ease the mind?(David Hawkes)(3)Boundless spirits and blissful heartA park laid out with scenery surpassing fine and rare!Submissive to thy will, on boundless bliss bashful I write!Who could believe that yonder scenes in this world found a share!Will not thy heart be charmed on thy visit by the sight?(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)Peaceful Disposition. Pleased FeelingsThe garden is completed. The scenery and the contents are specially ingenious and wonderful.I receive the command and blush to make an inscription for the tablet Peaceful and Pleased.Who would have believed that in the world there was this region?As I come sauntering here how can I not be pleased with divine thoughts?(B.S. Bonsall)

万象争辉 探春(第十八回)

名园筑出势巍巍,奉命何惭学浅微。精妙一时言不出,果然万物生光辉。(1)ALL THINGS VIE IN SPLENDOURThis garden laid out with consummate artI blush, with my poor skill, its fame to render.Past telling are the marvels in this placeFor here, indeed, all things compete in splendour.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Brightness and GraceWater on hills and hills on waters smile,More bright and graceful than the Immortal Isle.Midst odorous herbs the singer’s green fan hides;Her crimson skirt through falling petals glides.A radiant jewel to the world is shown,A fairy princess from her tower come down:And since her steps the garden’s walks have trod,No mortal foot must desecrate its sod.(David Hawkes)(3)All nature vies in splendourOf aspect lofty and sublime is raised a park of fame!Honoured with thy bequest, my shallow lore fills me with shame.No words could e’er amply exhaust the beauteous skill,For lo! In very truth glory and splendour all things fill!(H. Bencraft Joly)(4)Ten Thousand Shapes Contend in Their BrillianceThe famous Garden has been constructed lofty and precipitous in appearance.I receive the command. I am much ashamed that my scholarship is shallow and slight.The essentially wonderful cannot in a moment be fully described.The ten thousand objects are indeed brilliant.(B.S. Bonsall)

文章造化 惜春(第十八回)

山水横拖千里外,楼台高起五云中。园修日月光辉里,景夺文章造化功。(1)REFINEMENT IN CREATIONThis landscape stretches to infinity,Its high pavilions soaring to the sky;Laid out in radiance of the moon and sun,Nature itself is by these scenes outdone.(杨宪益、戴乃迭)(2)Art the CreatorThe garden’s landscape far and wide outspreads;High in the clouds its buildings raise their heads;Serene in moonlight, radiant in the sun-Great Nature’s handiwork has been outdone!(David Hawkes)

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