前言 我一生中译过三本中篇小说,依序是汉明威的《老人和大海》、毛姆的《书袋》(The Book Bag)、梅尔维尔的《录事巴托比》(Bartleby the Scrivener)。我译的《老人和大海》于一九五二年十二月一日迄一九五三年一月廿三日在台北市《大华晚报》上连载,应该是此书最早的中译;但由重光文艺出版社印成专书,却在一九五七年十二月,比张爱玲的译本稍晚。隔了五十三年,我早年的译本现在交由南京译林出版社出版,改名为《老人与海》,作者也改称海明威。其实我仍然觉得“汉”比“海”更接近原音。
当年我译此书,刚从台湾大学毕业,译笔尚未熟练,经验更是不足,实在相当自不量力。衡以今日的水准,当年的这译本只能得七十分。海明威半生的专业是做记者,报道也以战争为主,所以他的文体习于冷眼旁观。简洁而且紧凑,句子不长,段落也较短。这种文体有意避免以主要子句统摄几个附属子句的漫长复合句,而代之以单行的simple sentence,所以在冗长繁琐的维多利亚体之后出现,颇有廓清反璞之功。我常觉得英文正如其他西文,是尊卑有序、主客分明的语言(language of subordination);中文则不然,即使长句,也是由几个身份相当的短句串联而成,是前呼后应、主客不分的语言(language of coordination)。海明威的句子往往是一个单行句后跟另一单行句,中间只用and来联系。下面是两个例句:
The fish had turned silver from his original purple and silver, and the stripes showed the same pale violet colour as his tail. They were wider than a man's hand with his fingers spread and the fish's eye looked as detached as the mirrors in a periscope or as a saint in a procession.
就算在复合句中,海明威的附属子句也往往简短明了,例如:
They were very tiny but he knew they were nourishing and they tasted good. The old man still had two drinks of water in the bottle and he used half of one after he had eaten the shrimps.
问题当然不止这些,其中一个仍来自代名词,例如这么两句:The fish was coming in on his circle now calm and beautiful looking and only his great tail moving. The old man pulled on him all that he could to bring him closer. 里面的两个his、两个him当然都是指大鱼,但是he却是指老渔夫,实在易生误会。这不能怪海明威,只能怪英文的文法容许在同一短句之中用同一代名词代表不同的人物。例如朱艾敦名诗《亚历山大之盛宴》就有这么四行:
以下为对购买帮助不大的评价