In the introduction of the translator of the Bian Zhilin Translation Collection, it is said that "Hamonlai" has the most important status, "Othello" has the most rigorous structure, "King Lear" has the most grandeur, and "Macbeth" has the fastest movement. That's a good point, but I would like to add two things: It's not just Othello that's structurally rigorous. Macbeth begins with the prophecies of three witches about titles and thrones; three warnings are raised in the middle: one is to watch out for Madaf, the other is to guard against the forest moving to the battlefield, and the third is to avoid opponents who are not born of their mother; and the final result is that Madhav, who was born by caesarean section, leads a hidden army of leaves to kill Macbeth. Can this structure be said to be loose? Speaking of King Lear, the king divides the land among the first and second daughters of sweet talkers, but does not give any land to the young daughter who tells the truth. As a result, both the eldest daughter and the second daughter abandoned him, while the young daughter he abandoned complained with virtue. The last two daughters of the persecuted father and king killed each other for the sake of a traitorous thief. Can this structure be said to be loose?
Let's analyze some of the lines of King Lear to see if it has grandeur. First, listen to the first act of the first act, the eldest daughter, Gonelia's sweet words to King Lear:
Sir,I love you more than word can wield the matter,
Dearerthan eyesight, space and liberty,
Beyondwhat can be valued, rich or rare,
Noless than life, with grace, health, beauty, honor,
Asmuch as child e’er loved, or father found,
A lovethat makes breath poor and speech unable,
Beyondall manner of so much I love you.
Father, my love for you is not expressed in words: I love you more than my own eyes, the whole space, and the vast freedom; transcend all the precious and rare things that can be valued: no less than a life endowed with virtue, health, beauty, and honor; there has never been a son who has loved his father like this, nor has a father loved him like this; this kind of love can make lips and tongues weak, and the argument is useless; I love you cannot be counted.
Zhu yi is basically a reciprocal translation, "vast freedom" and "endowed with Shude... Life" seems to be a bit of a problem, "has not been" and "has not been" seems to be verbose, and "lips and tongue are weak" but seems powerful.
(Bian translation) My Lord, I love you beyond words to describe,
More than loving one's own eyes, the vast freedom,
More than everything that is recognized as precious and precious,
No less than lucky, bodybuilding, honorable life,
Fathers of children have never loved more, and they have seen more love,
This kind of love renders lips and tongues impotent and speech dysfunctional.
I love you more than any analogy of this analogy.
The Bian translation is similar to the original text, with five steps per line. Basically, it is a suppressed Yang, which is not easy. But Zhu Translation did not translate well, and Bian Translation did not translate well. "More love, more love" is very concise, but there seems to be a problem with the statement. As for grandeur, it is even more difficult to say.
There are no words to express my feelings for my father, no pair of eyes to see such a time and space, from the heart, unrestricted love, no wealth can measure the weight of feelings. How much weight life has, how much affection there is, as for health, beauty, morality, honor, that is only a part of life, let alone a word. My feelings for my father made the language I could utter pale, how could I say it?
There are no words, no eyes, no wealth, three "no" in a row, and the negative tone is more magnificent than the positive tone. Space includes space-time, liberty is said to be unrestricted from the negative side, value is concretized as a measure, Zhu translation and Bian translation are "no less than", Xu translation repeats "how much" from the front. With Zhu translated as "endowed", Bian translated as "lucky, fit, honorable life", seems to be a few noun adjectives, but I feel that they are all part of life. How to understand it better depends on which translation is more known, good, and happy.
The second scene of The Third Act of King Lear has a passage from Lear in the Storm:
Blowwinds and crack your cheeks!
Zhu Shenghao's translation is: "Blow, wind! Swell your cheeks and blow hard! Bian Zhilin's translation is: "Blow, strong wind, blow your cheeks!" The original text is Lear speaking to the storm, anthropomorphizing the storm. It means to crack the cheeks of the storm blowing the wind. This anthropomorphism is often used to abstract the abstraction into a concrete writing, and the original text appears vivid and powerful. However, Zhu Yi used the word "swelling and breaking", which is not easy to understand, because comparing the wind to a person, people blow their cheeks, but they cannot say "swelling and breaking", how to blow when the cheeks are inflated? Therefore, the Zhu translation here is not as good as the Bian translation. Bian's translation uses the word "blowing crack", which means that the wind blows up the cheeks and blows them apart. This is more reasonable than Zhu Yi, but it can also be misunderstood to blow people's cheeks. So the book translates: "Blow your cheeks, blow everything down with all your might!" "It may not cause misunderstanding, and there are too many words; there are still gains and losses." But how much to lose, or more to lose? I think that the addition word is "from the heart", which is a matter of form, and if there is no "excess" in the content, it is still more than a loss. Measured by yanfu's "xindaya" standard, whether Zhu Bian's second translation "believes" or is faithful to the content of the original text can be studied. Is it up to you? I think that in order to be faithful to the form of the original text, the translator uses "bloating" and "blowing" to translate the word crack, which is easy to cause misunderstanding, and the original text does not cause this misunderstanding, so the translation does not convey the content of the original text well. When there is a contradiction between content and form, content is primary and form is secondary. The new translation adds words in the form, which is "from the heart", but it is not "excessive", but it can better convey the content of the original text than Zhu Bian's second translation, so it is more in line with the standard of "Xinda".
King Lear went on to say:
Rage,blow, you cataractes and hurricanoes,
Spouttill you have drenched our steeples, drown
thecocks!
Illustration by John Gilbert for King Lear
Zhu's translation was: "You, the waterfall-like downpour, although it poured down, flooded our minarets and drowned the wind signs on the roof!" Bian's translation is: "Seizures! Blow it! Torrents and sprees, spewing out, soaking through the spires of the church and drowning hyacinth chickens! Shakespeare's original text uses two more specific words to further deepen the power of the storm, that is, "the clicking waterfall and the rapid roaring wind and rain", which in turn reflects the power of Shakespeare's words. Zhu translation uses "waterfall-like pouring rain" to translate Shakespeare's style, but the original text still has the shape and sound of the part "click click click", the translation can not be compared with the original text. Bian's translation of "torrents and wild rides" is also a translation of Dayi, but in terms of visualization, it is not as good as Zhu translation. Shakespeare used three verbs, meaning: roar, blow, gush; Zhu translated the three verbs as "pouring down", "drowning", "drowning", but "roaring" can be used for people, can be used for animals, used here, can have an anthropomorphic intentions, more power. Bian translates the word "seizure", which can be anthropomorphic, but the power is insufficient. Bian's translation of "soaking through" is not as good as Zhu's translation, but "the spire of the church" is more specific and more visual than "our minaret". "Squirt out... Drowning the Hyacinth Chicken" is also more specific than Zhu Translation. The translation of this book with reference to Zhu Yibian is: "Rainstorm, spray your curtain-like waterfall to flood the spire of the church, drown the hyacinth chicken on the roof!" "The waterfall like a curtain transforms the sound beauty of clicking into the image beauty of a curtain, and the "hyacinth chicken" uses "drowning" to anthropomorphize and return the soul.
Shakespeare went further in describing the storm in more specific terms by saying:
Yousulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriersof oak-cleaving thunderbolt
Singemy white head ！
Zhu Yi said: "The electric fire of sulfur that you thought as quickly as you were, the pioneer of the thunder that broke the oak tree, and the head of my white hair burned!" Bian's translation is: "The brimstone fire that is as fast as a turn of thought, the messenger of the thunder of the oak tree, burn my white head!" Zhu translation uses "thought as fast" to describe electric light, which is used well; Bian translation says "as fast as a turn of thought", which seems more accurate, but both translations are literally translated "sulfur electric fire" or "sulfur fire", which is not easy to understand, and then it is necessary to enter the real situation from the literal. Will king Lear see lightning like a brimstone fire? I can't imagine that all I can see is phosphorescence. Both translations also use the words "herald" and "messenger", which is not bad, but the original text also uses the word vaunt, which is an exaggerated meaning, although this word is mixed with the French avant to become "precursor", but according to the specific style of Shakespeare's use of words, it is not excluded here that electric light is compared to the vanguard of exaggerated and mighty momentum. After writing the electric light, Sha Shi then described the thunder, Zhu translation is "the thunder that splits the oak tree", Bian translation is "the thunder of ten thousand jun splitting oak trees", and the Bian translation is more powerful than the Zhu translation. Finally, the word singlee means "burnt", Zhu translated the word "white hair" more specific than bian translated "white head", so that people like seeing the fire burning wild grass dead leaves like burning a full head of white hair, white hair and dry grass are more closely related than white heads. On the basis of Zhu Bian's second translation, this book translates this sentence as follows: "Lightning that emits a thousand phosphorescent rays, faster than the rapid change of thought, the pioneer of the ten thousand thunderbolts that split the towering oak trees, and burns my head full of white-haired dry grass like a raging fire!" ”
After Comparing Electricity to Ray's Pioneer, Shakespeare went on to write About Thunder:
Andthou, all-shaking thunder,
Strikeflat the thick rotundity o’th’world!
Zhu Yi was: "You shocked everything, and flattened this dense and full earth!" Bian's translation is: "The thunder that shakes everything, flatten the bulging belly of this world!" "Zhu's translation of crepe is not as colloquial as Bian's translation, which can be put on the stage." However, the Bian translation is also inconsistent, sometimes in chinese, sometimes in spoken language. The original book also has this problem: rotundity is not in harmony with the whole sentence. So the book was changed to:
"Earth-shattering thunder and lightning, flatten this uneven earth!"
Lear's stormy line ends:
Cracknature’s moulds, all germens spill at once
Thatmake ungrateful man!
Zhu Translation: "Smash the model of creation." Don't let a seed of ungrateful humanity be left behind! Bian translation: "Smash the mold of creation." Except for the eradication of the species, there will be no more negative human beings! The first verb Zhu translates as "smashing", which is not as powerful as the Bian translation of "smashing", and it is best to merge the second translation into "smashing and smashing", which is more powerful. "Model of creation" is better than "mold", "mold" is more colloquial, but it is easy to cause misunderstanding, thinking that "creation" is to describe "mold", so it is better to change it to "Creator" or "nature". In the end, Lear wants to eliminate the negative people, not the "negative human beings." So the book was changed to: "Smash and smash the ungrateful human form cast by nature!" "If the predecessors are not correct, the future generations can improve them, so that the world culture will progress."
Excerpted from the afterword to the translation of Xu Yuanchong's Complete Classics of Chinese Translation: King Lear
A Selection of Shakespeare Plays: Antony and Cleopatra, Othello, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth (Macbeth) "Much Ado About Nothing", "As You Like it", "The Merchant of Venice", "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "Love'sLabour's Lost"