《红楼梦》·《柳絮词·南柯子》英译

空挂纤纤缕，<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

徒垂络络丝。

也难绾系也难羁，

一任东西南北各分离。

　　

落去君休惜，

飞来我自知。

莺愁蝶倦晚芳时，

纵是明春再见隔年期！

 

Nan-ge-zi

 

Once in the air you start,

The creatures of the wind, the breezes’ sport,

Not to be bound or held back by any art,

To north and south and east and west

You drift apart.

Your drifting fate not fear:

I understand the message that you bear.

Though orioles mourn and the flowers’ end seems near,

Spring will return, but I must wait

Another year.

 

（David Hawkes 译）

 

“The official of Nan-k’o” air

 

To no purpose hang the slender, slender threads.

In vain drop the connected silk fibres.

They are both hard to fasten together and hard to restrain.

Each as it pleases divides to North, South, East, and West.

 

（B.S. Bonsall 译）

 

（注：本词下阙未译。）

 

Nangezi

 

In vain the willow trails long slender branches,

Hanging strands of silk are they;

They cannot curb the catkins

And north, south, east and west these drift away.

Do not mourn their falling;

Where they fly, only I have any idea;

Orioles grieve, butterflies flag as flowers fade,

But next spring, another year past, they will reappear.

 

（杨宪益、戴乃迭 译）