钱锺书《围城》里的那些经典比喻句翻成英文是什么感觉？

大家都知道《围城》里充满了精妙绝伦的讽刺和比喻，让人捧腹，令人拍案，同时又不禁感叹钱锺书对人生百态的洞察。

想不想知道这些精彩的比喻句翻译成英文是什么样？

双语君摘录了美国译者凯利（Jeanne Kelly ）和茅国权（Nathan K. Mao）的译本，让大家欣赏一下。

围城Fortress Besieged

婚姻爱情

▌婚姻是一座围城，城外的人想进去，城里的人想出来。

Marriage is like a fortress besieged: those who are outside want to get in, and those who are inside want to get out.

▌那时候苏小姐把自己的爱情看得太名贵了，不肯随便施与。现在呢，宛如做了好衣服，舍不得穿，锁在箱里，过一两年忽然发现这衣服的样子和花色都不时髦了，有些自怅自悔。

In those days she valued her affection too highly to bestow it causally. Now, however, she was just like the person who has some fine clothes made and, saving them for good occasions, locks them in a chest. Then one or two years later she suddenly finds their style and design are out of fashion and is filled with disappointment and regret.

▌有人失恋了，会把他们的伤心立刻像叫化子的烂腿，血淋淋地公开展览，博人怜悯，或者事过境迁，像战士的金疮旧斑，脱衣指示，使人惊佩。

Some people when jilted will immediately display their broken hearts in public and drip with blood like a beggar’s scraped legs to stir pity. Or else, after the whole affair is over, they will pull up their clothes in the manner of a veteran and point it out like an old battle scar to arouse awe and wonder.

▌可是心里忘不了他，好比牙齿钳去了，齿腔空着作痛，更好比花盆里种的小树，要连根拔它，这花盆就得迸裂。

But deep down she could not forget him. It was like the gum left empty and aching after a tooth is extracted, or like a small tree in a flower pot. To pull it up roots and all, one mush smash the pot.

▌她跟辛楣的长期认识并不会日积月累地成为恋爱，好比冬季每天的气候罢，你没法把今天的温度加在昨天的上面，好等明天积成个和暖的春日。

It must be said that her long years of friendship with Hsin-mei did not add up to love, just as in winter no one can add today’s temperature to yesterday’s to come up with a warm spring day for tomorrow.
▌老头子恋爱听说像老房子着了火，烧起来没有救的。An old man’s love was said to be like an old house set ablaze. Once it started burning, there was no saving it.

人物描写

▌假使她从帆布躺椅上站起来，会见得身段瘦削，也许轮廓的线条太硬，像方头钢笔划成的……

When she rose from the canvas lounge chair, one could see how slight she was. Moreover, the outline of her figure was perhaps too sharp, as if it had been drawn with a squared-nibbed pen.

▌方鸿渐看唐小姐不笑的时候，脸上还依恋着笑意，像音乐停止后袅袅空中的语音。

Fang Hung-chien noticed that the trace of a smile lingered on Miss T’ang’s face when she was not smiling, like the last few notes that float in the air after the music ceased.

▌她(唐小姐)眼睛并不顶大，可是灵活温柔，反衬得很多女人的大眼睛只像政治家讲的大话，大而无当。

Not especially large, her eyes were lively and gentle, making the big eyes of many women seem like the big talk of politicians – big and useless.

▌李先生脸上少了那副黑眼镜，两只大白眼睛像剥掉壳的煮熟鸡蛋。

Without his dark glasses on his face, Li’s large, white eyes looked like two shelled hard-boiled eggs.

▌孩子不足两岁，塌鼻子，眼睛两条斜缝，眉毛高高在上，跟眼睛远隔得彼此要害相思病，活像报上讽刺画里的中国人的脸。

Her son, not yet two years old, had a snub nose, two slanted slits for eyes, and eyebrows so high up and removed from the eyes that the eyebrows and the eyes must have pined for each other – a living replica of the Chinese face in newspaper caricatures.

▌顾尔谦的兴致像水里浮的软木塞，倾盆大雨都打他不下。

Ku Er-chien’s enthusiasm was like a cork floating on water that even a heavy downpour couldn’t knock over.

▌她冷淡的笑容，像阴寒欲雪天的淡日。

Her faint smile was like an overcast sky on a cold dreary day.

▌幸亏年轻女人的眼泪还不是秋冬的雨点，不致把自己的脸摧毁得衰败，只像清明时节的梦雨，浸肿了地面，添了些泥。

Fortunately, a young girl’s tears aren’t yet like the raindrops of autumn or winter. They don’t bring destruction and ruin to the face, but are more like the steady rains of early April, which soak and swell the ground, making it muddier.

人生百态

▌这一张文凭，仿佛有亚当、夏娃下身那片树叶的公用，可以遮羞包丑。

The diploma, it seemed, would function the same as Adam and Eve’s figleaf. It could hid a person’s shame and wrap up his disgrace.

▌忠厚老实人的恶毒，像饭里的砂砾或者出骨鱼片里未净的刺，会给人一种不期待的伤痛。

The viciousness of a kind, simple-hearted soul, like gritty sand in the rice or splinters in a deboned fish, can give a person unexpected pain.

▌事实上，一个人的缺点正像猴子的尾巴，猴子蹲在地面的时候，尾巴是看不见的，直到他向树上爬，就把后部供大家瞻仰，可是红臀长尾巴本来就有，并非地位爬高了的新标识。

A person’s shortcomings are just like a monkey’s tail. When it’s squatting on the ground, its tail is hidden from view, but as soon as it climbs a tree, it exposes its backside to everyone. Nevertheless, the long tail and red bottom were there all the time. They aren’t just a mark of having climbed to a higher position.

▌（张先生）喜欢中国话里夹无谓的英文字。他并无中文难达的新意，需要借英文来讲；所以他说话里嵌的英文字，还比不得嘴里嵌的金牙，因为金牙不仅装点，尚可使用，只好比牙缝里嵌的肉屑，表示饭菜好吃，此外全无用处。

Mr. Chang liked to sprinkle his Chinese with meaningless English expressions. It wasn’t that he had new ideas, which were difficult to express in Chinese and required the use of English. The English words inlaid in his speech could not thus be compared with the gold teeth inlaid in one’s mouth, since gold teeth are not only decorative but functional as well. A better comparison would be with the bits of meat stuck between the teeth – they show that one has had a good meal but are otherwise useless.

▌张太太上海话比丈夫讲得好，可是时时流露乡土音，仿佛罩褂太小，遮不了里面的袍子。

Mrs. Chang spoke Shanghainese better than her husband, but her native accent often showed through like an undersized jacket that doesn’t cover up the gown underneath.

▌假使（方鸿渐的呼噜声）真灌成片子，那声气哗啦哗啦，又像风涛澎湃，又像狼吞虎咽，中间还夹着一些又尖又细的声音，忽高忽低，袅袅不绝。有时这一条丝高上去、高上去，细得、细得像放足的风筝线要断了，不知怎么像过一个峰尖，又降落安稳下来。

If a recording really had been made, it would have been a thunderous racket, like the roaring of waves or the gobbling and gulping of wolves or tigers, accompanied by a thin, sharp thread of sound in the middle that rose and fell abruptly without stop. Sometimes the thread rose higher and higher, getting thinner and thinner like a kite-string about to snap. Then for some reason it would descend and stabilize as if reaching a peak. 

▌鸿渐研究出西洋人丑的跟中国人不同：中国人丑的像造物者偷工减料的结果，潦草塞责的丑；西洋人丑像造物者恶意的表现，存心跟脸上五官开玩笑，所以丑的有计划，有作用。

Hung-chien had found from close study that Westerners are ugly in a different way from Chinese: Chinese ugliness seems to be the result of the Creator’s having skimped on time and materials. It is a slapdash, perfunctorily put together ugliness. Westerners’ ugliness seems a mark of the Creator’s spite. He has purposely set out the play jokes with the facial features. The ugliness thus has a plan and a motive behind it.

景物描写

▌夜仿佛纸浸了油，变成半透明体；它给太阳拥抱住了，分不出身来，也许是给太阳陶醉了，所以夕照晚霞隐褪后的夜色也带着酡红。

The night, like paper soaked in oil, had become translucent. Locked in the embrace of the sun, the night’s own form was indiscernible. Perhaps it had become intoxicated by the sun, which would explain why the night sky remained flushed long after the gradual fading of the rosy sunset.

▌孙小姐的大手电雪亮地光射丈余，从黑暗的心脏里挖出一条隧道。

Miss Sun’s large flashlight shone with snowy brightness for more than a foot, digging a tunnel through the heart of the darkness.

▌这雨愈下愈老成，水点贯串作丝，河面上像出了痘，无数麻瘢似的水涡，随生随灭，息息不停，到雨线更密，又仿佛光滑的水面上在长毛。

The rain grew bolder as it fell, the drops linking together to form a thread. The surface of the river seemed to have broken out with smallpox, as countless pockmarked eddies continuously came and went. As the rain became denser, it seemed as though hair were growing from the smooth, glossy surface of the water.

▌这是暮秋天气，山深日短，云雾里露出一线月亮，宛如一只挤着的近视眼睛。少顷，这月亮圆滑得什么都粘不上，轻盈得什么都压不住，从蓬松如絮的云堆下无牵挂地浮出来，本来还有一边没满，像被打耳光的脸肿着一边。

It was late autumn, and deep in the mountains the days were short. A ray of moonlight showed through the clouds like a squinting, nearsighted eye. After a moment the moon, too round and smooth for anything to stick to it and too light and nimble to be held down, floated out unencumbered from the mass of tousled, fluff-like clouds. On side was not yet full, like a face swollen up on one side from a slap.

（编辑：左卓 秦区区<实习>）

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