《懷舊》的三個英譯本

《懷舊》是魯迅最早的一篇小說，但因為是用文言所寫，且直到魯迅身後才收入《集外集拾遺》，所以遠不如他的白話小說那樣受到英譯者的關注。

海外學者最早將《懷舊》譯成英文的是美國漢學家威廉·萊爾（William A.Lyell）。萊爾的譯文作為附錄發表於他1976年出版的研究專著《魯迅的現實觀》（Lu Hsun's Vision of Reality），後又收入他1990年出版的魯迅小說全譯本——《狂人日記和其他小說》（Diary of a Madman and Other Stories）。總體來說，萊爾的譯文比較準確。但也有幾處問題，最為嚴重的是兩處。

第一處的原文是：“予……知耀宗曾以二十一歲無子，急蓄妾三人，而禿先生亦雲以不孝有三，無後為大，故嘗投三十一金，購如夫人一，則優禮之故，自因耀宗純孝。”萊爾的譯文是：

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.

這裏萊爾將“三十一金”譯成twenty-one pieces of gold（二十一金）顯然是筆誤。更大的錯誤則在於，他認為這三十一金是耀宗因為感激禿先生的知遇之恩（was so moved）而送給禿先生用以購買小妾的。根據原文，我們知道“嘗投三十一金，購如夫人一”的主語是承前句的“禿先生”，這裏絲毫看不出他接受耀宗饋贈的意思。

第二處的原文是：“王翁曾言其父嘗遇長毛，伏地乞命，叩額赤腫如鵝，得弗殺，為之治庖侑食，因獲殊寵，得多金。逮長毛敗，以術逃歸，漸為富室，居蕪市雲。時欲以一飯博安民，殊不如乃父智。”萊爾的譯文是：

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.

這裏萊爾將“其父”、“乃父”翻譯成王翁的父親（Old Wang's father），顯然是不對的。如果他的父親“逮長毛敗，以術逃歸，漸為富室”，那麽他本人應該是一個富家公子，至少也衣食無憂，而不可能如小說一開始即說明的那樣是一個“家之閽人”——看門人，這和他的身份明顯不符。這裏的“其父”無疑是指耀宗的父親，——小說在耀宗出場時有一句介紹：“耀宗金氏，居左鄰，擁巨資。”另外，在上述引文之前還有一段話也非常有助於我們的理解：“不知耀宗固不論山賊海盜白帽赤巾，皆謂之長毛；故禿先生所言，耀宗亦弗解。‘來時當須備飯。我家廳事小，擬借張睢陽廟庭饗其半。彼輩既得飯，其出示安民耶。’耀宗稟性魯，而簞食壺漿以迎王師之術，則有家訓。”耀宗要用請客吃飯的方式來對付長毛是從他父親那裏學來的，所謂“有家訓”，下面講他父親四十年前遭遇真正長毛的故事，是順理成章的。

在萊爾之後，再次將《懷舊》譯成英文的是英國漢學家藍詩玲（Julia Lovell），她的譯文發表於2009年出版的《阿Q 正傳和其他故事：魯迅小說全集》（The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China：The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun）。與萊爾的譯文相比，藍詩玲的譯文更加流暢，也更加準確。仍以上面所引兩段文字為例，藍氏的翻譯是：

（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.