“华诗会译丛”《冰花诗选》（徐英才译）隆重出版

译者的话

         冰花出版她第一部汉语诗集《溪水边的玫瑰》时，我正在翻译《英译唐宋八大家散文精选》、《英译中国当代美文选》等散文集，很少上网，消息闭塞。数年后，我浏览网页，偶然看到她一首诗的英译文，估计出自一位不谙汉语的外国人之手，出于怜惜好诗被译文糟蹋而不安的心理，我留了言，告诉她，那首诗的英译不能用。当时我们是陌路生人，我压根儿都未想到其蝴蝶效应，由此播下的种子会于今日开出《冰花诗选》英译之花。



         去年，主编转来她为《诗殿堂》创刊号约来的诗稿，我一眼就认出了她的四首诗，那时，她写诗的功力我已有所知晓，自然就打算录用，但觉得其自带的英译中有两首虽然可以勉强，却还可以再提高，就动笔重译了一遍。没想到，这一译，就收手不得，蝴蝶效应就发作了。作为一名翻译与诗人，见到好诗，怎么能够收得住手呢？于是，我让她投来八首情诗，译成英语，在《诗殿堂》的特辑栏目进行了发表。



         至此，我们互相已经熟悉，我喜爱她的诗歌，她欣赏我的翻译。虽然我很忙，有很多经典著作想译，但她提出让我翻译这本《冰花诗选》时，我搁下手头工作，欣然答应了。

        一朵含苞待放的夏荷

        心    在心事中裹缠

        谁能把裹缠片片剥开

        谁能把荷的心呼唤出来

        ……

冰花的诗，大多取材于大自然，形象生动、情感纯真、立意独特、错落有致。比如，读了她上边的《荷的心事》，一个心事重重的夏荷之形象，独特之意境跃然脑海，久久不能离去。冰花的诗语言具有一种独特的清新风格，飘落到哪里，都能一眼就被辨认出来。

         我在翻译冰花的诗选时，坚持以诗译诗，用文字画画，借译文传情，努力译出冰花之诗的个性，让译文具有辨认功能，努力让读者通过译文感觉到冰花的风格。我的翻译原则是在信、达、雅基础上，努力做到准确、传神、浑然。但受限于时间，译得匆忙，错误在所难免，望读者能够原谅。

                                                                                                                                                         

                                               徐英才

  Translator’s Notes

        When Bing Hua’s first Chinese poetry selection Roses by the Stream came out, because I was then busy translating a series of prose collections, rarely surfing the internet, I was not aware of it. One day a few years later when I was browsing some webpages, I came across the English translation of one of her poems. Worrying its quality might give negative impression to readers as it was most likely rendered by an American who didn’t know Chinese language, I left her a message, asking her not to use that translation. We didn’t know each other at that time. So, I had not at all expected that someday the seed I had sown by leaving her a message would have such a butterfly effect as to bloom into the flower of the translation of this Selected Poems of Bing Hua.      



        Last year, the editor in charge of new poems forwarded me some poems she had requested from some well-known poets for the debut issue of Poetry Hall, a Chinese and English bilingual journal. I immediately recognized Bing Hua’s four poems among them. I was by then already well informed of her poetry writing excellence, but because I felt two of the translations that came with the poems could be improved, I took the liberty and retranslated them into English. Unexpectedly, once I started translating her poems, I could hardly stop, as the butterfly effect took its full wing. I am a translator and a poet as well. Once I see good poems, how can I stop translating them? Therefore, I asked her to send me another eight love poems. I translated them and published them in the Special Column of our Poetry Hall.



        By now, we already knew each other well. I loved her poems and she adored my translation. Although I was very busy and wanted to translate some classical Chinese works, once she asked me to translate this Selected Poems of Bing Hua, I put aside everything I was doing and immediately accepted her request.





         A summer lotus bud, yet to bloom

        Has an obsession wrapped in its heart 

        Who can peel off those wrapping petals

        Who can call out the wrapped heart





        Most of Bing Hua’s poems, if not all, are inspired by nature. They are vivid in image, authentic in feeling, unique in artistic concept, and clear in internal rhythm, such as the above-mentioned free verse The Lotus’ Obsession. Once you read it, the image of an obsessed lotus bud and its artistic concept would linger in your mind for a long time. Bing Hua’s poetic language is characterized with a unique freshness. Wherever you come across it, you can easily identify it as Bing Hua’s language.



        In translating this selection, I strive to render her poems as poems, to use words as colors to paint the images she has projected, and to use translation as a medium to convey the feelings she wants to convey, focusing on bringing out her poetic individuality or style, so familiar readers can recognize her poems as hers through the translation. On top of Yan Fu’s three words translation guidelines I follow -- faithfulness, expressiveness, and elegance, I also strive to fulfil my own translation principle: accuracy, individuality, and coherence. But as this translation is done with quite a limited amount of time, there must be some mistakes. I beg your forgiveness, if so.



                                                               Xu Yingcai







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