翻译擂台（第31期）

林巍

【原文】

“哭哭啼啼没出息”

[1]李敖喜欢海明威。海明威说过，人可以被打败，但却不可以被打垮。这一点，李敖做到了。[2]他曾经嘲笑过大陆的“伤痕文学”是“哭哭啼啼没出息”。[3]他曾入狱受了10年折磨，但出来后春风不改，笑容依旧。[4]稍事片刻的休整，他又拍马挺枪，再次上阵搏杀了，而且越战越勇。所以，他是有权嘲笑的。

【点评】

李敖原是大陆人，后随着那场历史性的变故到了台湾，成为两岸知名的、颇具特色的学者和作家。许多参赛者在翻译的同时对相关的背景做了功课，有的还写了注释，这是非常可取的;翻译中其实少不了学术成分。

对于题目，有的参赛者漏掉没有翻译，这是不应该的，因题目是文章的有机甚至是重要的组成部分，关系到下面内容。对此，一般译成Weeping and Wailing Produces Nothing、Useless Tears、Unpromising Weeps等，有的作了引申的意译，如Like a Sniveling Victim Without Bright Prospect、Pathetic Losers等，应当说，除了其中的一些语法、词语表述等问题外，不啻为有益尝试。在形式上，题目应为黑体（bold），而英文单词的第一个字母要大写。对此，为简洁醒目，不妨译为：Li Ao： Mere Weeping is Good for Nothing。

[1]中，“李敖喜欢海明威。海明威说过……”，许多人跟随原文，译成“Li Ao loves Hemingway. Hemingway said that…”，然而依据中文“意合”、英文“形合”的特点，第二个Hemingway可用代词who或whose （saying） 等，以避免重复。顺便说，有参赛者将“海明威”拼写成Hai Mingwei，可见其不知美国此著名作家。

对于“人可以被打败，但却不可以被打垮”，许多人译成“people can be defeated， but can not be beaten down”“human beings could be defeated， but they couldn’t be knocked down”“one can be beaten but never be broken”等，顯然没有核对原文。该名句出自海明威的名著《老人与海》（The Old Man and the Sea）：But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated. 直译为：但人不是为失败而生的。一个人可以被消灭，但不能被打败。原文在引用时作了些变通，即说成“打败”，主要是将destroy淡化了，而此处指的是人生中有数的失败，如：There are men who simply don’t like being beaten by a woman.（有些男人就是不想被女人打败。）故此处若用beat也可以接受。“打垮”，则可用defeat，该词固然有物质方面的，如：Our soldiers inflicted a severe defeat upon the enemy troops.（我军使敌军遭到惨败。）同时，更有精神方面的，如the feeling that accompanies an experience of being thwarted in attaining your goals，即有理想破灭之意，如：After the pain of defeat passes， England have some thinking to do.（失败的痛苦过去以后，英国人应该认真反思一下。）beat和defeat可结合使用，如：We can be beaten thousands of times but never be defeated.（我们可以被千百次地打倒，但我们不能接受失败。）

“这一点，李敖做到了。”参赛者一般译成“Li Ao did/made it.”“This is what exactly Li Ao did.”“Li Ao lived up to this sentence.”其实“He was the man.”是有特指的，如：I always knew that he was the man for me.（对我来说，他就是世上无可取代的那个人。）应当说，有的译文相当不错，如：As an admirer of Hemingway， Li Ao lived up to what his idol said of a man who “can be destroyed but not defeated”.

故此，该句不妨译为：Li Ao liked Hemingway， who said that man can be destroyed but not defeated. Li Ao was surely the man in this regard.

[2]中的“嘲笑”，参赛译文用了ridicule、scorn、mock、deride、make fun of、jeer at等，若前后搭配恰当，似都可接受。

所谓“伤痕文学”是上世纪70年代末到80年代初在中国文坛出现的一种特有的文学现象，因短篇小说《伤痕》而得名，揭示了“文革”对人们心灵的沉痛伤害，有其特殊的历史价值，李敖的观点未必中肯，此处不加评说。单就翻译而言，有译为trauma literature、bruise literature等，但更确切的应为 “Scar Literature”（即所谓的，应加引号）。

故该句不妨译为：He once ridiculed the “Scar Literature” on Chinese mainland as merely weeping and wailing that are good for nothing.

[3]中，“他曾入狱受了10年折磨”，参赛者作了多方尝试，如He was tormented for ten years in prison、He had been in jail for a torturous ten years等，似都可接受，但了解背景的，还应作点儿“增译”，如Having been put in jail in Taiwan where he suffered for ten years。

“春风不改，笑容依旧”是一种文学语言，形容他意志并未颓丧。有的译得比较实，如his smile still bloomed after liberation;有的稍放开一些，如he remained smiling and active after releasing from prison;还有的更偏意译，如he didn’t change after he was released from prison。其实，若指其精神状态并未change，则不妨用intact，其义为not harmed or damaged as a result of something that has happened，类似的，如：His reputation survived intact.（他的名声丝毫未受影响。）同时，可结合smiling和confident。

故整句不妨译为：Having been put in jail in Taiwan where he suffered for ten years， he came out intact， as he was still smiling and confident.令人欣喜的是，亦有參赛译文非常出彩，如：He was justified in doing so as he had endured a decade of suffering behind bars， but he emerged with his spirit unbroken and his smile undimmed.

[4]中，“稍事片刻的休整”是一种夸张，似不必实译成took a momen-tary rest等。

“他又拍马挺枪……而且越战越勇”则可实可虚，前者如“he became a warrior again who， holding a spear on horseback， charged back into battle， his courage mounting as he fought on”“he grabbed his spear and mounted the horse to fight again and even more bravely like a knight in the literary battlefield”等，而后者不宜太略，如“he was setting out again， and getting better and better”“allowed him for another round of fight”等。总之，应有“重整旗鼓”之意，如用rallied his forces或pulled himself together。

对于“有权嘲笑”中的“权”，大都译成right、power，须知，此二词都是法律概念，而此处更多体现的是一种社会价值中的“资格”（配不配），故可用be entitled to或in a position to，如：①He was entitled to have a state funeral.（他有权享受国葬待遇。）②He is in a position to comment on this matter.（他最有权评论此事。）

此句不妨译为：Taking a break， he rallied his forces and started afresh， fighting even more courageously. He was thus entitled to make fun of what he had said.

尽管李敖是个争议性人物，但他那种不服输的精神、屡败屡战的斗志，即使对于不断面对挑战的译者，也多少不乏正能量。                                       □

【优胜者】

李美尼（海南）   郝福合（北京）   宝静雅（内蒙古）