林庚·《沪之雨夜》英译

来在沪上的雨夜里

听街上汽车逝过

檐间的雨漏乃如高山流水

打着柄杭州的油伞出去吧

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雨水湿了一片柏油路

巷中楼上有人拉南胡

是一曲似不关心的幽怨

孟姜女寻夫到长城

Shanghai Rainy Night

Lin Kêng

Into the rainy street I came

And heard thee motors swiftly splash away.

Cascades from the eaves like “water from a high mountain”—

With my Hangchow umbrella perhaps I’ll saunter forth….

Water has drenched the endless pavement.

Aloft in a lane there is somebody playing the nan-hu (1),

A tune of abstract long-forgotten sorrow:

“Mêng Chiang Nü (2), to seek her husband,

Has gone to the Great Wall.”

Note:

(1)    The nan-hu is a southern form of the popular erh-hu or “two-stringed violin”: “no matter what its form may be or what material it is made of, it only has two strings, which are tuned at a distance of a fifth from each other, and between which the two passes.”—J. A. van Aalst: Chinese Music.

(2)    Mêng Chiang Nü: the heroine of many popular ballads and legends connected with the building of the Great Wall. Her husband was imprisoned into a labour-gang and sent north to build the Great Wall. As no word came from him, she set forth in search of him alone.