春天，月光下的奔跑（一）

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今天为大家分享的短文摘自吉卜林的The Second Jungle Book。吉卜林1865年生于印度孟买，1871年回英国上学。1882年至1889年，他作为记者在印度工作，创作了不少以印度为背景的作品。1907年获诺贝尔文学奖。他的儿童文学作品The Jungle Book （1894）广受好评。

Rudyard Kipling

The Spring Running (1)

春跑（一）

It was a perfect white night, as they call it. All green things seemed to have made a month’s growth since the morning. The branch that was yellow-leaved the day before dripped sap when Mowgli broke it. The mosses curled deep and warm over his feet, the young grass had no cutting edges, and all the voices of the Jungle boomed like one deep harp-string touched by the moon—the Moon of New Talk, who splashed her light full on rock and pool, slipped it between trunk and creeper, and sifted it through a million leaves.

这正像人们所说的，是一个地道的白夜。自早晨，所有的绿色植物好像已经生长了一个月。昨天还有黄叶的树枝，莫格里折断一看，便有汁液滴出来。地上暖乎乎的苔藓没过他的双脚，小草还没有长出尖利的叶子，丛林里回荡着嗡嗡声，犹如竖琴的低音琴弦被月光拨动时发出的音响，月亮——“新交谈季”①的月亮——把它的光洒在石头上，洒在水洼里，穿过树干和藤萝之间的空隙，透过万千婆娑的树叶。

① 根据原著所述，丛林中各种动物在春季叫声特别，因此春季被称为“新交谈季”。

Forgetting his unhappiness, Mowgli sang aloud with pure delight as he settled into his stride. It was more like flying than anything else, for he had chosen the long downward slope that leads to the Northern Marshes through the heart of the main Jungle, where the springy ground deadened the fall of his feet. A man-taught man would have picked his way with many stumbles through the cheating moonlight, but Mowgli’s muscles, trained by years of experience, bore him up as though he were a feather.

当莫格里迈开步子跑起来，他便忘记了自己的不幸，怀着纯净的愉快的心情，高声唱了起来。那简直就是飞翔，因为他选择的是一条很长的下行山坡，穿过丛林的中心通向北泽，脚踩在松软而有弹性的地上听不见声音。即使是被别人提醒过的人，由于月光所造成的假象，在这样的地上跑步时也会经常被绊倒的，可是，莫格里的肌肉经过多年的锻炼，支撑着他就像支撑一片羽毛。

When a rotten log or a hidden stone turned under his foot he saved himself, never checking his pace, without effort and without thought. When he tired of ground-going he threw up his hands monkey-fashion to the nearest creeper, and seemed to float rather than to climb up into the thin branches, whence he would follow a tree-road till his mood changed, and he shot downward in a long, leafy curve to the levels again.

当腐烂的树干或看不见的石头被他踩翻时，他从不放慢速度，也无所顾忌，仍能毫不费力地让自己平安无事。当他在地面上跑厌倦了，就像猴子似地把双手往上一伸，抓住最近的藤萝，不是往上爬，而好像是漂进稀疏的树枝中间，然后他会沿着“树上的路”往前滑动，直到他的心情改变，便往下一跳，穿过空中的树叶划出一个长长的弧，又回到平地上。

译后语

(1) —the Moon of New Talk, who splashed her light full on rock and pool, slipped it between trunk and creeper, and sifted it through a million leaves.

这句话描写月光洒满大地，无处不在。这里用了三个动词splashed、slipped、sifted，描绘月光洒向林间、水石相映、树影斑驳的景象，如画一般。三个动词都产生了形象的修辞效果，译文用了“洒在”“穿过”和“透过”，与原文的效果相近。

(2) ...and all the voices of the Jungle boomed like one deep harp-string touched by the moon...

作家的想象很奇特，听见丛林里的嗡嗡声，联想到竖琴的低音琴弦被月光拨动时发出的音响，犹如仙乐，轻柔，美妙。这句话里有两个动词需处理好，boomed是动词象声词，因此将其译成“回荡着嗡嗡声”；touched by the moon译成汉语并不困难，但表述方式则需要考虑所描写环境的氛围。

以上内容摘自《英语经典散文翻译与赏析》，刘士聪选译，谷启楠审译。书中有对原文译文的赏析和讲解，对学英语和学翻译都大有帮助。图片来自网络。

本书为近代重要英语作家、名人的散文随笔选译本，收录蒲柏、骚塞、兰姆、狄更斯、吉卜林、休谟等名家的60篇散文精品。书中每个篇目包括作家简介、原文、译文和译后语四部分。

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