梁譯莎劇的信、達、恰

The Fidelity, Fluency and Felicity in Liang's Translation of Shakespeare's Plays

梁實秋先生的譯作不少，但他有關翻譯的論說不多。他的觀念可能是：翻譯首當求信，再當求達，而不必然求雅。除「信」與「達」之外，恰當或恰巧的「恰」，也可能是他對翻譯之另一項要求。在翻譯莎士比亞的劇本時，梁先生有特定的策略與手法：先選擇版本，再研定文體與標點符號之使用，然後確定以句為翻譯單位，既不逐字直譯，也不整句整段意譯，一切要弄清楚原文之真義才翻譯。此外，他盡量按實際讀音來譯外國的人名、地名，而碰到無法翻譯的雙關語、多義字與典故等，便加上註解以為交代。他要把莎劇譯成「能讀」，而不重視「能演」。他不進行「創譯」，他的手法應屬「細譯」：他不只抓住原作之大意與精神，更要在各個字、詞、語、句，各個段落、篇章的形、音、義、境等各個層面上，都盡量斟酌，讓譯作跟原作盡量對等一樣。他要先信於細節，再發揮達功，最後再展現恰切的技巧。觀察梁先生翻譯莎劇的實際結果，從他翻譯的劇名、人名，乃至各個劇本中的對話、台詞、詩歌，我們發現：在「只為閱讀，不為演出」的觀念之下，在詩歌與散文的文體轉換之間，在英文與中文的語言差異與文化差異裡頭，在形、音、義、境四大層面的斟酌之上，梁先生跟任何翻譯大師一樣，其譯法雖採中庸之道而帶有權變，卻難免有顧此失彼、偶見失漏之處。整體而言，他常「因信而稍為不達」，也常造成「信達有餘而恰巧不足」的缺憾。但那些瑕疵或許並不太影響他被尊為翻譯大師之事實。

Despite its relatively small quantity, Liang Shih-chiu's academic discussion of translation reveals that he believes in fidelity and fluency as the first two requirements for translation and he does not regard elegance as a necessary requirement. Felicity may be his third requirement for translation in place of elegance. In translating Shakespeare's plays, he adopts certain strategies and methods to fulfill his assumed requirements, including the choice of a particular edition of Shakespeare for his translation, the adoption of a particular style including the use of punctuation, the consideration of “taking a sentence as the unit” for translation, and the prevention of literal translation as well as paragraph paraphrasing, and the thorough study of Shakespeare's verbal meanings. In addition to discussing Liang's ideas of translation, this paper examines the result of Liang's practical translation of Shakespeare's plays. The examination is focused on details of his translations for the titles of the plays, the dialogues and songs in the plays, and the names of persons and places therein. It also draws attention to his dealings with puns, ambiguity of words, allusions, and other subtle problems concerning the sound, shape, sense, and situation of the target texts. It is found that although Liang seems to follow the doctrine of mean in doing his translations, Liang often achieves fidelity at the cost of fluency and often fails to attain felicity, as he tries to translate Shakespeare's plays just for reading, not for acting, he uses Chinese prose to translate Shakespeare's English blank verse, and he overlooks some linguistic and cultural differences between Chinese and English in certain critical cases. As a master of translation, he certainly cannot avoid certain lapses which ordinary translators may have, although they should not seriously affect his fame as a translator.