两位大师对红楼梦的翻译选摘

1、贾蓉对卜世仁说：“巧媳妇做不出没有米的饭来，叫我怎么办呢？”（曹，273）

 －－“Even the cleverest housewife can’t cook a meal without rice. What do you expect me to do?” said Jia Rong to Pu Shiren (Yang & Yang)
 －－and I don’t see what I am supposed to do without any capital. Even the cleverest housewife can’t make bread without flour. (Hawkes)

2、    癞蛤蟆想天鹅肉吃。（曹，165）
 －－  A toad hankering for a taste of swan. (Yang & Yang)
 －－ A case of “the toad on the ground wanting to eat the goose in the sky” (Hawkes)


3、    真实“天有不测风云，人有旦夕祸福。”（曹，156 ）

－－“Truly, storms gather without warning in nature, and bad luck befalls men overnight…” (Yang & Yang)
－－“I know ‘the weather and human life are both unpredictable’” (Hawkes)


4    好了歌

世人都晓神仙好，
惟有功名忘不了！
古今将相在何方？
荒冢一堆草没了。


1） A Good Things Must End

By Yang & Yang
All men have to be immortals.
Yet to riches and rank each aspires.
The great ones of old, where are they now?
Their graves are a mass of briars.


2） Won-Done Song

By Hawkes
Men all know that salvation should be won,
But with ambition won’t have done, have done.
Where are the famous ones of days gone by?
In grassy graves they lie now, every one.