這裏貼上毛澤東詩詞《雪》的兩個翻譯，第一個不帶韻，是官方版，第二個帶韻，大家可以比較一下。

1.

 

SNOW

 

--to the tune of Chin Yuan Chun

 

February 1936

 

North country scene: 

A hundred leagues locked in ice, 

A thousand leagues of whirling snow. 

Both sides of the Great Wall 

One single white immensity. 

The Yellow River's swift current 

Is stilled from end to end. 

The mountains dance like silver snakes 

And the highlands* charge like wax-hued elephants, 

Vying with heaven in stature. 

On a fine day, the land, 

Clad in white, adorned in red, 

Grows more enchanting.

 

This land so rich in beauty 

Has made countless heroes bow in homage. 

But alas! Chin Shih-huang and Han Wu-ti 

Were lacking in literary grace, 

And Tang Tai-tsung and Sung Tai-tsu 

Had little poetry in their souls; 

And Genghis Khan, 

Proud Son of Heaven for a day, 

Knew only shooting eagles, bow outstretched 

All are past and gone! 

For truly great men 

Look to this age alone.

 

 

 

 

2.

 

 

The Snow

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 A poem of the Chinese classic style verse called as “Xin Yuan Cun” (The Spring Comes to a Delightful Garden) written by Mao Zedong in February of 1936. But it was not published until Mao went toChongqing in 1945 to hold peace talkswith Jiang Jieshi(Chiang Kai-shek). Mao and Jiang had been deadly enemies intheir whole lives. One may guess that Mao was “flattering” Jiang or expressing his own ambition through that poem for that special occasion.

-

Translated in English by Johnson K. Gao in 2008 at 71 years of age in DallasTexas, USA. As one can calculate out that the translator had not been born whenthat poem was written. He was still a fetus in his mother uterus at that time. Gaohad composed a song for the poem of “Snow”, which was selected in a CD called as “For Love, For Snow and For Echo” (http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnsongao2) and music sheet in “Gao’s Music for Olympic Games”(http://www.lulu.com/content/2102738).

‘Tis the wind and the light

(1)

of the northern landscape that caught my feeling:The field is frozen in the ice extending several hundred of miles

(2)

,And above three thousand of miles

(2)

the dazzling snow is flying.Staring at both inside and outside along the Long-long Castle*,It remains to me nothing but a vast in vastness.Starting from its original source until its final end,Immediately, the giant river

(3)

lost its turbulent waves.Mountains are as like as silvering snakes in dancing.The platform presents herds of waxy elephant running over the plain.As though they would like to compete with the heavenly God to see who is higher.When one glances at it on a fine day,It turns into a fair lady, who’d make-up with rouge and garmented in white,That is extremely elegant and charming.The territory is so gorgeous and enchantment.That had lured countless heroes to rush in, bend and bow.What a pity, the emperor Qinhuang and the emperor Hanwu

(4)

were lack of literacy.The emperor Tangzong and the emperor Songzu

(5)

knew little about Feng-Sao

(6)

.As for Genghis Khan, who had been qualified as “The Proud Son of the Heaven”.He knew only how to stretch the bow to shoot huge eagles.Ah! All of them had passed over now.If one wish to count among those wind-flowing men

(7)

,It had better to find them rather in this current generation

(8)

.

(1) Chinese people always use the wind and light to represent the word “scene” inEnglish. The Chinese poem could be the most concise one, among poems with differentlanguages, in using words and in selecting sounds so carefully, and it compresses themeaning to be so concentrated. The first line of Mao’s poem has only four Chinese

 

 

characters: Bei Guo Feng Guang. Those words mean Northern, country (nation), wind,and light. The Chinese word “Guo” means nation or country, but, I translated it simply to“landscape”. There is no need to use a subjective word in a sentence as in English that ithas to have. In majority of case, verses of English translation can not be read as beautifulas the original Chinese verses. That is one reason why one must study Chinese to feelChinese poems’ beautiful sounds and rhythms.(2) The Chinese unit of length “Li” equals to ½ kilometer. Of course one Li is shorter than a mile. However, when the poet used one thousand of Li (or Lies if you think it proper) and ten thousand of Li in the poem, he was only to describe a very long distance but not the exact length of unit. The translator used mile for the Li here. But, after aconsideration, the translator felt that to use ten thousand of miles to translate ten thousandof Li will cause a problem, since the Earth is only 40,000 kilometers in its equator, tenthousand of miles will be extra too long for the northern part of the Earth. So, He usedthree thousand of miles for author’s ten thousand Li and several hundred miles for thethousand of Li.(3) The giant river in the original Chinese words are “Da (big) He (river)”. That was todenote the Yellow River (because of its muddy color water thus so named) by the poet.(4) Qinhuang = Qing (dynasty’s) Shi Huang Di. Here Shi = beginning, Huang = King of kings, and Di = emperor. Hanwu = Han (dynasty’s) Wu (military) Di (emperor).(5) Tangzong = Tang (dynasty’s) Tai (great-grand father) Zong (clan). Songzu = Song(dynasty’s) Tai (great-grandfather) Zu (ancestor).(6) Feng = Guo Feng (an album of poems corrected by Confucius from differentcountries or states in the northern China). Sao = Lisao, which was a famous poem written by the greatest poet in the Chinese history Qu Yuan in State Chu (now the Hunan andHubei areas). In Mao’s poem he used the short form Feng-Sao two Chinese characters torepresent poetry as a whole.(7) Wind-flowing men are the straight translation from the Chinese characters Feng =wind, Liu = flowing, Ren = men, Wu = things. Putting those four characters together, it produces a special meaning to describe those heroic persons with all of the followingcharacters: handsome, clever, smart, talented, full of wisdom, capable of doing things,admirable, outstanding, romantic, having leadership that cause other people to payrespect to them and to obedient to them willingly. No any English word can be translatedwithout losing its entire meaning. So, I keep the original words and created the newEnglish word “wind-flowing man”.(8) The “current generation” was translated from two Chinese characters: Jin = today,Zhao = morning or a dynasty.* I don’t know whom that he or she was the first person to translate the Chinese words“Chang Cheng” in to English as the “Great Wall”. Although it is now acceptedunanimously, the original meaning of “Chang Cheng” is a “Long Castle” or “Elongatedcastles”. Here, the translator used the word “Long-long Castle” to describe its extremelength of that castle