翻译擂台（第15期）

翻译擂台（第15期）

【原文】

[1]厌倦是人生第一件罪恶，也是人生第一件苦痛。厌倦是一种想脱离活动的心理现象。换一句话说，就是不愿意劳作。[2]你想，一个人不是上帝特制出来充当消化面包的机器，可以一天不劳作吗？[3]只要稍为动一动不愿意劳作的念头，便是万恶渊薮。[4]换个方面看，无论何等人，总要靠劳作来维持自己生命，任凭你怎样地不愿意，劳作到底免不掉。

——梁启超

【点评】

梁启超不但是中国近代史上杰出的思想家、政治家，而且是一位大教育家。他的九个子女各个成才，“一门三院士，父子九专家”，其秘诀是言传身教。选文是他对学生的演讲，也可看作是对后辈的教诲。

[1]中，关于“厌倦”的译词，参赛者用的是boredom、tiredness、weariness、indolence、ennui等，应当说都不算错，但经辨析：①ennui为法文，固然有“a feeling of being tired, bored and dissatisfied”之意，但不够常用；②indolence为inactivity resulting from a dislike of work，更多的是“懒惰”；③weariness是temporary loss of strength and energy resulting from hard physical or mental work，即暂时性的倦怠；④tiredness类似于weariness；⑤而boredom（bored的名词形式）为tired、impatient、have no interest in doing anything，是一种常态化的厌倦，故更为确切。

“罪恶”的译法，有的用了crime，需知该词的主要意思是an act which is against the law，即违法行为，然此处并非该意；而evil是morally objectionable behavior，更多道德色彩，同时可泛指一切恶事（见[3]）；guilt本义为an unhappy feeling after having done something wrong，主要是内疚，显然不符。当然，用的最多的是sin，该词最初源于宗教，意为an action or type of behavior which is believed to break the laws of God，original sin（原罪），但又不限于宗教，因the laws of God与natural law（自然法）相通，多指一种本性上的“恶”，如：①他们没有任何道德观念，生活中充 满 罪 恶。（Without any moral consideration, they are now living in sin.）②He saves us from the power of sin.（他使我们摆脱了罪恶势力。）

但该句的译文很容易冗赘，如：Boredom is the first sin of life, and also the first suffering of life. / Tiredness is the guilt of the first thing all one’s life and the first pain of one’s life. / Boredom is the most sinful and also the most painful thing in ...，等等。实则可以简化，避免重复，突出主旨。

“心理现象”，大都译成了psychological phenomena，如：Boredom is a psychological phenomenon that someone wants to separate himself or herself from activities.这未免过于表面化了，实则，这里讲的是一种生活态度，故不妨用mentality，意为a particular attitude and way of thinking，即主要是一种“心态”。此段中第二个“厌倦”显然有递进之意，即“实质上是……（不愿或厌恶做任何事）”，而“不愿意劳作”其实就是懒惰！同时，英语口语里说“烦了”，还可用sick of，如：I am so sick of all the noise and traffic here.（对这里的噪音和交通混乱，我真烦透了。）

故此，[1]不妨译为：Boredom, in my view, is the most painful thing, and a sin to suffer. In essence, it is the mentality of being sick of doing anything at all.In other words, it’s lazy!

[2]中，“你想”，一般译成了just think、just imagine、think about that等，比较典型的，如：Think about that, as humans are not a machine created particularly by God to digest bread but can human not work for a day long?/Just think, a man was not supposed only to be a bread eater when God created him. Could he have a single day without working?/ You see, men are not created by God to be bread-consuming machines. How could we live a day without working? 有的将此处三个分句整合为一句：“You may save yourself from hard work only if you were a God-made bread digester which, unfortunately you are not”，也是非常可取的，尽管在形式上距原文较远。其实，这里的“你想”，是启发读者意识到（这样一个事实），而“消化面包的机器”是指食而不作。故[2]不妨译为：One has to realize that man was not created by God to be a machine merely to digest food. How can one fail to work?

[3]中，“只要稍为动一动……念头”，一般采用了... don’t have a slight error in thought/ Don’t think a little bit about .../ So long as you give rise to the thought .../ If you somewhat occur to an idea that (you are averse to working ...) /as long as you toy with idea of (unwilling to work)/ As if you have an idea of not(work)等译法，似乎都是一种思路，而“The moment the tendency of being sick of working began to erode your mind, you already fell into abyss of extreme evil”则别开生面！其实，英语里还有一种通俗表达法：not even to think of it /not to even think about that，如：You should not try to smuggle any drugs in that country, where the most severe penalty is in place; don’t even think of it！（那个国家对毒品走私有最严厉的制裁；不要试图做那种事——想都不要想！）故 [3]可译为：It’s best not to even think about that, since boredom is the source of all evils.

[4]中，将“换个方面看”译成from another prospective / on the other hand / put in another way等，似乎都可接受。“维持自己生命”，即“生存”“生活”之意，但又不宜简单地译成maintain (sustain) life / to exist through working等。有的译成Anybody needs to work to keep them alive，其中的“keep ...alive”是使役句式（causative verb），即“使其活下去”，显然有误；此处应为自动词（intransitive verbs），如make a living，或to survive，其本义为continue to live、endure or last，类似的还有endure、hold up、hold out等。总的讲，此句的实际意思是，任何人都别想不劳而获，可表达为：you shouldn’t expect to get something without any labor / there is no free lunch in the world / there is no reaping without sowing，等等。故此，[4]不妨译为：Put in another way, whoever wishes to survive has to labor to support oneself, no matter if one is willing or not.

此段演讲，接续的还有一句话（因篇幅所限删去了），“免是免不掉，愿是不愿意，天天皱着眉哭着脸去做那不愿做的苦工，岂不是活活地把自己关在第十八层地狱？”，此处也不妨翻译如下：Fully aware of the necessity to work, should one still frown reluctantly at one’s job every day? Is that any different from sinking oneself into the bottom of hell? 仅供参考。

（点评人：林巍，暨南大学翻译学院特聘教授）

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