苏轼·《石钟山记》英译

The Stone Bell Hill<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

According to The Book of Waters, at the mouth of the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Pengli Lake stands a hill named Stone Bell. Li Daoyuan explains in his annotation, "The base of the hill reaches a deep pond. Stirred by the breeze, the rippling of waves onto the stones sounds like the ringing of huge bells."

There has been a widespread skepticism about this view. Placed in the waters, a bell or a stone chime will never ring in the stormiest waves, let alone the hill-stones! Li Bo in the Tang Dynasty was the first to explore the site. When he struck two stones from the lakeshore, the one from the south hill sounded dull and muffled compared to the one from the north hill, which sounded clear and rich with a lasting resonation. He thought that he had ascertained the origin of this hill's name. However, I have harbored more suspicion about this view. Since resounding stones can be found everywhere, why is this hill alone named "Bell"?

On the ninth day of the sixth month by the lunar calendar in the seventh year during the Yuanfeng reign (1084), I was taking a boat from Qi'an to Linru while my eldest son Su Mai was going to take office as the county magistrate in Dexing County, Raozhou Prefecture. On my way to see him off to Hukou, I had the opportunity to see the "Stone Bell" hill. When the bonze told a boy to strike at a couple of stones in the rubbles to emit thumping sounds, I frankly laughed it away.

In the bright moonlight after dusk, I took a small boat with Su Mai and came under the cliff. By my side towered a thousand-foot rock, as if a wild beast or exotic demon were threatening to jump at us; startled by my approach, falcons nesting on the hill took sudden flights, hooting amid the clouds; cranes whooped and chuckled like old men in the ravine. I was about to return in apprehension when a roar came from the waters, pealing and rumbling like the bells and drums, while the boatman showed signs of great horror.

As I looked closely, I detected nooks and crannies around the hill-base. I did not know the depth, but the noise surely came from the lapping and swirling of waters in them. When the boat came between the hills and approached the wharf, I noticed a colossal reef in the midstream, spacious enough to hold a hundred people. The numerous crevices in the hollow reef inhaled and exhaled wind and water, thumping and ringing to echo the previous pealing and rumbling, as if in a harmonious music.

I said to Su Mai with a smile, "Have you kept it in your mind? The thumping and ringing seem to come from the Wuyi Bell owned by King Jing of the Zhou Dynasty; the pealing and rumbling seem to come from the stringed chime owned by Wei Zhuangzi of the Jin State. People in the past did not hoax us with the name of 'Stone Bell'!"

Can we draw groundless conclusions without seeing or hearing by ourselves? Li Daoyuan saw and heard a similar sight as I, but his narrative was too rough; the scholar-bureaucrats could not get at the truth because they would not moor their boats under a cliff at night; the fishermen and boatmen knew the fact, but they could not write it down to make it known to the world; the shallow people struck at the stones with axes and presumed that they knew the answer. Therefore, I have written down my experience to regret Li Daoyuan's oversimplification and deride Li Bo's ignorance.

(汪榕培 译)