《怀旧》的三个英译本

《怀旧》是鲁迅最早的一篇小说，但因为是用文言所写，且直到鲁迅身后才收入《集外集拾遗》，所以远不如他的白话小说那样受到英译者的关注。

海外学者最早将《怀旧》译成英文的是美国汉学家威廉·莱尔（William A.Lyell）。莱尔的译文作为附录发表于他1976年出版的研究专著《鲁迅的现实观》（Lu Hsun's Vision of Reality），后又收入他1990年出版的鲁迅小说全译本——《狂人日记和其他小说》（Diary of a Madman and Other Stories）。总体来说，莱尔的译文比较准确。但也有几处问题，最为严重的是两处。

第一处的原文是：“予……知耀宗曾以二十一岁无子，急蓄妾三人，而秃先生亦云以不孝有三，无后为大，故尝投三十一金，购如夫人一，则优礼之故，自因耀宗纯孝。”莱尔的译文是：

I remembered that in the past Yao-tsung, having reached the ripe old age of twenty-one without having sired a son, had taken three pretty concubines into his household.Baldy had also started mouthing the saying “There are three things that are unfilial and to lack posterity is the greatest of these” as if to justify Yao-tsung's conduct.The latter was so moved by this that he gave Baldy twenty-one pieces of gold so that he too could buy a secondary wife.Thus I concluded that Baldy's reason for treating Yao-tsung with such unusual courtesy was that the latter had shown himself to be thoroughly filial.

这里莱尔将“三十一金”译成twenty-one pieces of gold（二十一金）显然是笔误。更大的错误则在于，他认为这三十一金是耀宗因为感激秃先生的知遇之恩（was so moved）而送给秃先生用以购买小妾的。根据原文，我们知道“尝投三十一金，购如夫人一”的主语是承前句的“秃先生”，这里丝毫看不出他接受耀宗馈赠的意思。

第二处的原文是：“王翁曾言其父尝遇长毛，伏地乞命，叩额赤肿如鹅，得弗杀，为之治庖侑食，因获殊宠，得多金。逮长毛败，以术逃归，渐为富室，居芜市云。时欲以一饭博安民，殊不如乃父智。”莱尔的译文是：

Old Wang too had once said that when his father encountered the Long Hairs, he kowtowed to them and begged for his life.In order to thoroughly convince them of his submission he had kept knocking his head on the ground until he had raised a big, ugly lump on it.But at least the Long Hairs had not killed him.Elaborating on the technique of feeding invading armies, old Wang's father had even gone a step farther and opened a kitchen to provide them with food.As a result the Long Hairs had become especially fond of him and he, in turn, had made a great deal of money.When they were finally defeated, he managed to get away from them, became wealthy in his own right, and finally settled down in Wu town.Thus, in a sense, Yao-tsung's plan of protecting the populace with a single feast was not nearly so farsighted as the strategem that Old Wang's father had employed.

这里莱尔将“其父”、“乃父”翻译成王翁的父亲（Old Wang's father），显然是不对的。如果他的父亲“逮长毛败，以术逃归，渐为富室”，那么他本人应该是一个富家公子，至少也衣食无忧，而不可能如小说一开始即说明的那样是一个“家之阍人”——看门人，这和他的身份明显不符。这里的“其父”无疑是指耀宗的父亲，——小说在耀宗出场时有一句介绍：“耀宗金氏，居左邻，拥巨资。”另外，在上述引文之前还有一段话也非常有助于我们的理解：“不知耀宗固不论山贼海盗白帽赤巾，皆谓之长毛；故秃先生所言，耀宗亦弗解。‘来时当须备饭。我家厅事小，拟借张睢阳庙庭飨其半。彼辈既得饭，其出示安民耶。’耀宗禀性鲁，而箪食壶浆以迎王师之术，则有家训。”耀宗要用请客吃饭的方式来对付长毛是从他父亲那里学来的，所谓“有家训”，下面讲他父亲四十年前遭遇真正长毛的故事，是顺理成章的。

在莱尔之后，再次将《怀旧》译成英文的是英国汉学家蓝诗玲（Julia Lovell），她的译文发表于2009年出版的《阿Q 正传和其他故事：鲁迅小说全集》（The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China：The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun）。与莱尔的译文相比，蓝诗玲的译文更加流畅，也更加准确。仍以上面所引两段文字为例，蓝氏的翻译是：

（1）I knew that, having failed to generate a son by the age of twenty, Yaozong had hurriedly acquired three concubines.It was around this time that my teacher became a staunch defender of Mencius's dictum that there were three ways of betraying a parent—of which dying without descendants was the vilest—and promptly invested thirty-one pieces of gold in a wife for himself.His excessive respect for Yaozong was presumably down to the younger man's virtuosic show of filial virtue.

（2）Wang had told me that Yaozong's father had met the Long Hairs：he had flung himself on to the ground and begged for his life, knocking a big red lump up on his forehead.But he managed to stay alive, at least—and ingratiated himself by running a kitchen to keep them fed, turning a healthy profit on the proceeds.After the Long Hairs were defeated, he managed to get away from them and return to Wushi, where he gradually succeeded in becoming comfortably off.Yaozong's current plan—of winning them over with a single square meal—was nothing to his father's ingenuity.

蓝译确实做到了踵事增华，后出转精。此外蓝译还有一个特点（如果不是缺点）：凡是翻译人物年龄时都减去一岁。如耀宗“二十一岁无子”到了蓝氏笔下就成了“二十岁无子”（failed to generate a son by the age of twenty），蓝氏这样做的理由是中国人计算年龄时往往都用虚岁，而西方人则用实际岁数。

可惜蓝诗玲译本问世时，莱尔已经去世（2005年）而无缘得见了。莱尔在翻译《怀旧》时曾参考过冯余声的译本，这是笔者所知到目前为止唯一由中国人完成的译本（杨宪益夫妇翻译了全部《呐喊》和《彷徨》，但没有译过《怀旧》），发表于民国上海的英文刊物《天下》（T'ien Hsia Monthly）第6卷第2期（1938年2月）。由于母语并非英语，冯译略显刻板。就准确性来看，冯译基本做到了“信”，但也存在一处严重的错误，有意思的是，他犯错的地方正是莱尔的第一个错误所在：

I tried to find out the reason, and learned that Yiu Chung had bought three concubines when he was twenty-one, under the pretext of wanting a male child.To justify Yiu Chung's actions Mr.Baldhead had quoted Confucius' saying, “Of the three crimes against filial piety, not having a son comes first.” Because of that, Yiu Chung had given Mr.Baldhead the sum of thirty-one dollars as a present, and with this Mr.Baldhead had also bought a concubine for himself.So his courtesy to Yiu Chung was due to the latter's friendly gift.