鲁迅·《秋夜有感》英译

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望帝终教芳草变，迷阳聊饰大田荒。

何来酪果供千佛，难得莲花似六郎。

中夜鸡鸣风雨集，起然烟卷觉新凉。

Fugitive Ideas in an Autumn Night¹

September 29^th, 1934

Lu Xun

Behind the gauzy veil their idle days swiftly pass,

Beside the execution ground is said the Buddhist mass, ²

The fragrant plants are wilted with cuckoos’ wails, ³

And only thistles decorate the wasted fields.
How can we offer myriads of Buddhas for mercy? ⁴

And happily should lotus look like “Miss Nancy”. ⁵

I get up, as the cock crows in the stormy night;

The fresh air calms me, and a cigarette I light.

1. Beginning from April 28^th, 1934, the reactionary rulers held for five days in Hangzhou a Buddhist mass and an operative performance at the same time. Resenting the hypocritical visage of the rulers in killing the revolutionaries on the one hand and praying to the kindness of Buddha on the other hand, Lu Xun wrote this poem.

2. These two lines imply the rulers led a debauched life on the seamy side and killed people while they were saying mass.

3. The line alludes to the pitiful state of literature and art under the “white terror”. In the poem Li Sao by Qu Yuan there is a line that reads thus: “I’m afraid that the cuckoo might sing earlier and wail till all of the plants become wilted.”

4. This line implies that the people cannot supply the rulers with the means to squander on such nonsense as holding a Buddhist mass.