谈李商隐诗的英译

On Li Shangyin's Poems in English Translation

李商隐也许是全世界第一个朦胧诗人,比法国十九世纪的朦胧诗人马拉美早了一千多年.要把我国诗词译成英文很不容易,要把李商隐的朦胧诗译成英文更是难上加难.

Li Shang-yin(812-858) was the first poet to write obscure poe-try. It is very difficult to translate his poems into English for his language is poetical while the English, on the contrary, is a scientific language. Science requires clarity and precision, but no obscurity. So the translation of an obscure poem should not be faithful to the original in form but in sense. In English poetry the sense goes as far as the words, but in Chinese poetry, sometimes when the words stop, the sense still goes on. The English-Chinese translation may be compared to superconductivity:it should convey the original idea to the reader without any loss. But the Chinese-English verse translation should be more than superconductivity:it must not only make the reader lose nothing, but also gain something. In other words, versification is creative translation. For a versifier, to be faithful to the original is the lowest criterion while to be beautiful is the highest.