論楊牧英詩中譯之問題:以鄧約翰〈良辰〉(The good-morrow)為例

Abstract

In English Poems in Chinese Translation (2007), a collection of English poems selected and translated by Mu Yang, poet and scholar, one finds the latest Chinese translations of five poems by Donne in a bilingual format: ”Death be not proud,” ”Batter my heart,” ”The good-morrow,” ”Valediction forbidding mourning” and ”Song: Goe and catche a falling starre.” Yang published Selected Poems of W. B. Yeats in Chinese (1997), which immediately became popular and often cited by many. English Poems in Chinese Translation is Yang's latest work of translation, and is more ambitious than his Chinese Yeats, in that the range of poetry chosen covers works as early as Beowulf and ”The Seafarer,” and as late as Dylan Thomas's ”Fern Hill.” While the five poems of Donne in Yang's book are indeed the latest ones in terms of the date of publication, the quality of Yang's Chinese Donne, compared with other translators' renderings of the English poet, seems to be the most erroneous of all as well. The emphasis of the present essay is on Yang's treatment of ”The good-morrow” and the problems which the rendering itself reveals: Yang's understanding / misunderstanding of Early Modern English, the literal meanings of some of the lines of the poem, Chinese etymology, English rhyme scheme and syllabification on the translator's part, and how these may lead to the misunderstanding of Donne's lively and witty language on the reader's. The author believes that a close examination of Yang's rendering of ”The good-morrow” serves as a survey of the available English Renaissance poetry in Chinese translation in general, and a scrutiny of all other Chinese translations of Donne in specific. If a complete corpus of Donne's works in Chinese appears in future years, anyone concerned about a future for Donne studies in the Chinese-speaking societies now should pay more attention to even just a small number of the latest Chinese translations of Donne's poems.