汉英翻译技巧第12章 汉语习语的翻译.ppt

As soon as Bao-yu closed his eyes he sank into a confused sleep in which Qin-shi was still there yet at the same time seemed to be drifting along weightlessly in front of him. He followed her until they came to a place of marble terraces and vermilion balustrades where there were green trees and crystal streams. Everything in this place was so clean and so pure that it seemed as if no human foot could ever have trodden there or floating speck of dust ever blown into it. Bao-yu’s dreaming self rejoiced. ‘What a delightful place!’ he thought. ‘If only I could spend all my life here! How much nicer it would be than living under the daily restraint of my parents and teachers!’ These idle reflections were interrupted by someone singing a song on the other side of a hill: ‘Spring’s dream-time will like drifting clouds disperse, Its flowers snatched by a flood none can reverse. Then tell each nymph and swain ‘This folly to invite love’s pain!’ It was the voice of a girl. Before its last echoes had died away, a beautiful woman appeared in the quarter from which the voice had come, approaching him with a floating, fluttering motion. She was quite unlike any earthly lady, as the following poem will make clear: A Dream of Red Mansionsby Cao XueqinExcerpts from Chapter 5 Jia Bao-yu visits the Land of Illusionand the fairy Disenchantment performs the“Dream of Golden Days” She has left her willow-tree house, from her blossoming bower stepped out; for the birds betray where she walks through the trees that cluster about, and a shadow athwart the winding walk announces that she is near, and a fragrance of musk and orchid from fluttering fairy sleeves, and a tinkle of girdle-gems that falls on the ear at each movement of her dress of lotus leaves. A peach-tree blossoms in her dimpling cheek; her cloud-coiled tresses are halcyon-sleek; and she reveals, through parted cherry lips, teeth like pomegranate pips. Her slim waist