用白话英语解读莎士比亚 Shakespeare in plain English

Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English. I’m Finn...
大家好，欢迎收听六分钟英语。我是芬恩。
… and I’m Neil. Hello.Today we are talking about Shakespeare.
大家好，我是尼尔。今天我们要谈论莎士比亚。
Oh yes… to be or not to be, that is the question.Whether ’tis nobler…
没错。生存还是毁灭，这是个问题。是否心灵高尚却遭受折磨。
Yeah. OK, thank you. Thank you very much, Finn. But what does that famous Shakespeare line actually mean, Finn?
好了，谢谢，非常感谢。但是莎士比亚这些名言到底是什么意思呢？
Yeah, well… it’s quite hard to explain actually. The English in Shakespeare’s work is quite difficult.
额，事实上这很难解释。莎士比亚作品中的英文很难理解。
Well, a Shakespeare festival in Oregon in the United States wants to change all of that.They want to pay writers – they want to commission - what they call ’translations’ of Shakespeare’s plays. Now we usually use the word translation of course to talk about changing words and sentences from one language to another.But these writers have been commissioned to translate Shakespearean English into plain English.
美国俄勒冈州的莎士比亚戏剧节想要改写作品中的英语。他们委托作家“翻译”莎士比亚戏剧，并给予一定报酬。如今我们用“翻译”这个词，来描述将词语和句子从一种语言转换为另一种语言。但是这些作家“受命”将莎士比亚作品中的英文翻译为简明英语。
So Shakespeare in easy, plain English… You know, I’m not sure I really like that idea.
用简单明了的白话英语翻译莎士比亚，我不觉得这是个好主意。
Well, you’re not the only one, Finn.We will talk about that in a moment, but first, as usual, we have our quiz question and it’s about Shakespeare and translation. What was the first language that Shakespeare’s plays were translated into?Was it:a) Frenchb) German or c) PortugueseWhat do you think?
不仅仅你这么认为。我们稍后继续这个话题，现在先回答今天的问题，是关于莎士比亚和其作品译本。莎士比亚戏剧被首次翻译成哪种语言？a) 法语b) 德语c) 葡萄牙语你认为是哪个呢？
You know, I really have no idea on this one.I’m going to say b) German.
我确实不了解。我选b)德语。
We’ll see if you’re right at the end of the programme.But now we’re going to hear from two Shakespeare experts speaking to the BBC.First, Andrew Dickinson. He is the author of ’Worlds Elsewhere: Journeys Around Shakespeare’s Globe’.
节目的最后我们再看你回答得是否正确。现在我们来听一听专门研究莎士比亚的学者的看法。首先是Andrew Dickinson。他是《另一处世界：探索有关莎士比亚的世界》（Worlds Elsewhere: Journeys Around Shakespeare’s Globe）一书的作者。
In his travels around the world - around the globe – did he find many translations of Shakespeare?
在他的环球旅行中，找到了很多莎士比亚作品的翻译吗？
Someone’s translated Hamlet into Klingon.You know, he exists in all of these different places and all of these different forms and I suppose that what really struck me while working on my book and travelling around the worldtalking to people about Shakespeare is that he is so multifarious - he exists in all of these places.It feels sometimes that we in the English-speaking world are only just catching up with this.
有些人将《哈姆雷特》译为克林贡语。莎士比亚存在于世界各地，以不同的形式存在。让我感触颇深的是，当我为写书环游世界，与人们谈起莎士比亚时，人们眼中的他是各式各样的，存在于世界各地。有时感觉生活在英语世界的我们对莎士比亚的了解也仅仅是九牛一毛。
Shakespeare expert Andrew Dickinson, who has travelled the world for his new book and knows about many translations, even one from out of this world!
研究莎士比亚的专家Andrew Dickinson为了新书环游世界，了解到了很多翻译版本，甚至是不存在于世界的语言版本。
Yes, he says someone has even translated Hamlet into Klingon. Now that’s the language spoken by aliens in Star Trek, which is of course a science fiction TV series, it’s not a real language.
是的，他提到有人讲《哈姆雷特》译为克林贡语。这种语言是科幻美剧《星际迷航》中外星人所说的语言，并不是现实生活中的真实语言。
Let’s get back to the real world, Neil.Andrew Dickinson says that what really impressed him – what really struck him- while working on his new book and travelling around the world talking about Shakespeare is that Shakespeare is so multifarious.Multifarious - that’s quite a difficult word.
让我们回到现实世界。Andrew Dickinson提到让他感触颇深，真正触动他的是，当他为新书环球旅行，与人们谈论其莎士比亚时，人们心中的莎士比亚是各式各样的。各式各样，这真是个很难懂的词。
Yes, it is. Well in plain English it means that there are many different types.There are many different translations, many different kinds of Shakespeare.
是的。简明英语中，这是指很多不同的类型。有许多不同版本的翻译，就能解读出不同类型的莎士比亚。
He’s multifarious.
他是多面的。
Finn! We’re using plain English in this programme, like the people in Oregon who want to translate Shakespeare into plain English.That will make his plays easier to understand.
芬恩！我们在节目中要使用简明英语，就像俄勒冈州的人们想要将莎士比亚翻译为简明英语，这使得他的戏剧更容易理解。
And that’s a good thing.But there has also been strong criticism about this from academics who study Shakespeare as well as from people on social media – on Facebook and Twitter.They think it’s a bad idea.
从这方面看，这是好事。但是研究莎士比亚的学者以及社交媒体（如脸书和推特）上的人们都强烈反对这种做法。他们认为这很荒谬。
Our next Shakespeare expert is Greg Doran.He is the Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company.He’s done productions outside Britain.Where did he do a production of the Shakespeare play, Merchant of Venice?Here he is talking about the difficulty of translation.
我们接下来要听的就是专家Greg Doran的看法。他是皇家莎士比亚剧团的艺术总监。他并不在英国进行戏剧创作。他在哪里导演了莎士比亚的戏剧《威尼斯商人》呢？他将谈到翻译莎士比亚作品的难度。
I think the difficulty with a translation is that it simply translates the sense and there’s a lot more going on in the language of Shakespeare’s plays.I remember once doing a production of Merchant of Venice in Japanand I was asked – we were having a new translation done- and I was asked if I wanted the translation for meaning, for pace or for poetry and that’s the difficulty. You’ve got to find all three somehow together.
我认为翻译的难度在于，不仅要翻译意思，莎士比亚戏剧的语言中还有很多深层次的东西。我记得之前在日本导演《威尼斯商人》，我们在进行新版本的翻译，有人问我是想翻译出意思，还是节奏，还是诗歌的感觉。这就是困难之处。你要将这三点结合起来。
Greg Doran, Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company.He was doing a Shakespeare production in Japan. He says that the difficulty with translation is that it only translates the sense – it is only the general meaning. But he says that there’s more than that.
Greg Doran是是皇家莎士比亚剧团的艺术总监。他在日本进行莎士比亚戏剧的排演。他认为翻译的困难在于不仅要翻译出意思，语言包含的大致含义。还要理解深层次的东西。
They were having a translation doneand he was asked if he wanted the translation for meaning or for pace – that’s about the speed of the lines in the play- or was the poetry of the words important?
他们进行翻译时，被问到是要翻译出语言包含的内容、还是节奏感（戏剧中台词的节奏）还是诗歌的感觉？哪一个更重要？
And his answer was that you’ve got to find all three somehow together.It is not just one thing.
他的回答是要将三者结合起来。不能仅仅翻译出一方面。
He says that there is a lot going on – there is a lot happening - in the language of Shakespeare’s plays.
他说莎士比亚戏剧中的语言有很多内容。
And so a simple translation of the words into plain English isn’t really… Shakespeare.And I think it’s time to answer our quiz question.
所以简单地把莎士比亚作品翻译为简明英语，太没有莎士比亚的风格了。我想现在该公布问题的答案了吧。
Yes, if you remember, it’s about translations of Shakespeare.What was the first language that Shakespeare’s plays were translated into?Was it:a) Frenchb) Germanc) Portuguese
你还记得吧，是关于莎士比亚作品的翻译。莎士比亚戏剧被首次翻译成哪种语言？a) 法语b) 德语c) 葡萄牙语
I said b) German, which I’ll admit was a guess.
我猜的是b) 德语。
And that is the right answer.
这就是正确答案。
Fantastic!
太棒了。
Apparently Shakespeare’s plays were translated into German as early as the first decade of the 17th Century.And that’s all for now.Please do join us again for 6 Minute English.
莎士比亚戏剧在17世纪初被翻译为德语。今天的节目就到这里。下期节目再会。
To be or not be...
存在还是毁灭……
Yes, OK. Thanks, Finn.
好了，芬恩，就到这吧。
Bye.
再见。