爱华网译文一：杨宪益、戴乃迭译
Songof Eternal Sorrow
Appreciating femininecharms,
The Han emperor sought a great beauty.
Throughout his empire he searched
For many years without success.
Then a daughter of the Yang family
Matured to womanhood.
Since she was secluded in her chamber,
None outside had seen her.
Yet with such beauty bestowed by fate,
How could she remain unknown?
One day she was chosen
To attend the emperor.
Glancing back and smiling,
She revealed a hundred charms.
All the powdered ladies of the six palaces
At once seemed dull and colourless.
One cold spring day she was ordered
To bathe in the Huaqing Palace baths.
The warm water slipped down
Her glistening jade-like body.
When her maids helped her rise,
She looked so frail and lovely,
At once she won the emperor’s favour.
Her hair like a cloud,
Her face like a flower,
A gold hair-pin adorning her tresses.
Behind the warm lotus-flower curtain,
They took their pleasure in the spring night.
Regretting only the spring nights were too short;
Rising only when the sun was high;
He stopped attending court sessions
In the early morning.
Constantly she amused and feasted with him,
Accompanying him on his spring outings,
Spending all the nights with him.
Though many beauties were in the palace,
More than three thousand of them,
All his favours were centred on her.
Finishing her coiffure in the gilded chamber,
Charming, she accompanied him at night.
Feasting together in the marble pavilion,
Inebriated in the spring.
All her sisters and brothers
Became nobles with fiefs.
How wonderful to have so much splendour
Centred in one family!
All parents wished for daughters
Instead of sons!
The Li Mountain lofty pleasure palace
Reached to the blue sky.
The sounds of heavenly music were carried
By the wind far and wide.
Gentle melodies and graceful dances
Mingled with the strings and flutes;
The emperor never tired of these.
Then battle drums shook the earth,
The alarm sounding from Yuyang.
The Rainbow and Feather Garments Dance
Was stopped by sounds of war.
Dust filled the high-towered capital.
As thousands of carriages and horsemen
Fled to the southwest.
The emperor’s green-canopied carriage
Was forced to halt,
Having left the west city gate
More than a hundred li.
There was nothing the emperor could do,
At the army’s refusal to proceed.
So she with the moth-like eyebrows
Was killed before his horses.
Her floral-patterned gilded box
Fell to the ground, abandoned and unwanted,
Like her jade hair-pin
With the gold sparrow and green feathers.
Covering his face with his hands,
He could not save her.
Turning back to look at her,
His tears mingled with her blood.
Yellow dust filled the sky;
The wind was cold and shrill.
Ascending high winding mountain paths,
They reached the Sword Pass,
At the foot of the Emei Mountains.
Few came that way.
Their banners seemed less resplendent;
Even the sun seemed dim.
Though the rivers were deep blue,
And the Sichuan mountains green,
Night and day the emperor mourned.
In his refuge when he saw the moon,
Even it seemed sad and wan.
On rainy nights, the sound of bells
Seemed broken-hearted.
Fortunes changed, the emperor was restored.
His dragon-carriage started back.
Reaching the place where she died,
He lingered, reluctant to leave.
In the earth and dust of Mawei Slope,
No lady with the jade-like face was found.
The spot was desolate.
Emperor and servants exchanged looks,
Their clothes stained with tears.
Turning eastwards towards the capital,
They led their horses slowly back.
The palace was unchanged on his return,
With lotus blooming in the Taiye Pool
And willows in the Weiyang Palace.
The lotus flowers were like her face;
The willows like her eyebrows.
How could he refrain from tears
At their sight?
The spring wind returned at night;
The peach and plum trees blossomed again.
Plane leaves fell in the autumn rains.
Weeds choked the emperor’s west palace;
Piles of red leaves on the unswept steps.
The hair of the young musicians of the Pear Garden
Turned to grey.
The green-clad maids of the spiced chambers
Were growing old.
At night when glow-worms flitted in the pavilion
He thought of her in silence.
The lonely lamp was nearly extinguished,
Yet still he could not sleep.
The slow sound of hells and drums
Was heard in the long night.
The Milky Way glimmered bright.
It was almost dawn.
Cold and frosty the paired love-bird tiles;
Chilly the kingfisher-feathered quilt
With none to share it.
Though she had died years before,
Even her spirit was absent from his dreams.
A priest from Linqiong came to Chang’an,
Said to summon spirits at his will.
Moved by the emperor’s longing for her,
He sent a magician to make a careful search.
Swift as lightning, through the air he sped,
Up to the heavens, below the earth, everywhere.
Though they searched the sky and nether regions,
Of her there was no sign.
Till he heard of a fairy mountain
In the ocean of a never-never land.
Ornate pavilions rose through coloured clouds,
Wherein dwelt lovely fairy folk.
One was named Taizhen,
With snowy skin and flowery beauty,
Suggesting that this might be she.
When he knocked at the jade door
Of the gilded palace’s west chamber,
A fairy maid, Xiaoyu, answered,
Reporting to another, Shuangcheng.
On hearing of the messenger
From the Han emperor,
She was startled from her sleep
Behind the gorgeous curtain.
Dressing, she drew it back,
Rising hesitantly.
The pearl curtains and silver screens
Opened in succession.
Her cloudy tresses were awry,
Just summoned from her sleep.
Without arranging her flower headdress,
She entered the hall.
The wind blew her fairy skirt,
Lifting it, as if she still danced
The Rainbow and Feather Garments Dance.
But her pale face was sad,
Tears filled her eyes,
Like a blossoming pear tree in spring,
With rain drops on its petals.
Controlling her feelings and looking away,
She thanked the emperor.
Since their parting she had not heard
His voice nor seen his face.
While she had been his first lady,
Their love had been ruptured.
Many years had passed
On Penglai fairy isle.
Turning her head,
She gazed down on the mortal world.
Chang’an could not be seen,
Only mist and dust.
She presented old mementos
To express her deep feeling.
Asking the messenger to take
The jewel box and the golden pin.
“I’ll keep one half of the pin and box;
Breaking the golden pin
And keeping the jewel lid.
As long as our love lasts
Like jewels and gold,
We may meet again
In heaven or on earth.”
Before they parted
She again sent this message,
Containing a pledge
Only she and the emperor knew.
In the Palace of Eternal Youth
On the seventh of the seventh moon,
Alone they had whispered
To each other atmidnight:
“In heaven we shall he birds
Flying side by side.
On earth flowering sprigs
On the same branch!”
Heaven and earth may not last for ever,
But this sorrow was eternal.
译文二：许渊冲译
THE EVERLASTING REGRET
The beauty-loving monarchlonged year after year
To find a beautiful lady without peer.
A maiden of the Yangs* to womanhood just grown,
In inner chambers bred, to the world was unknown.
Endowed with natural beauty too hard to hide,
One day she stood selected for the monarch’s side.
Turning her head, she smiled so sweet and full of grace
That she outshone in six palaces the fairest face.
She bathed in glassy water of warm-fountain pool,
Which laved and smoothed her creamy skin when spring wascool.
Upborne by her attendants, she rose too faint to move,
And this was when she first received the monarch’s love.
Flowerlike face and cloudlike hair, golden-headdressed,
In lotus-flower curtain she spent the night blessed.
She slept till sun rose high, for the blessed night wasshort,
From then on the monarch held no longer morning court.
In revels as in feasts she shared her lord’s delight,
His companion on trips and his mistress at night.
In inner palace dwelt three thousand ladies fair;
On her alone was lavished royal love and care.
Her beauty served the night when dressed in Golden Bower
Or drunk with wine and spring at banquet in Jade Tower.
All her sisters and brothers received rank and fief
And honours showered on her household, to the grief
Of the fathers and mothers who’d rather give birth
To a fair maiden than any son on earth.
The lofty palace towered high into blue cloud,
With wind-borne music so divine the air was loud.
Seeing slow dance and hearing fluted or stringed song,
The emperor was never tired the whole day long.
But rebels** beat their wardrums, making the earth quake
And “Song of Rainbow Skirt and Coat of Feathers” break.
A cloud of dust was raised o’er city walls nine-fold;
Thousands of chariots and horsemen southwestward rolled.
Imperial flags moved slowly now and halted then,
And thirty miles from Western Gate they stopped again.
Six armies would not march -- what could be done? -- withspeed
Until the Lady Yang was killed before the steed.
None would pick up her hairpin fallen to the ground
Or golden bird and comb with which her head was crowned.
The monarch could not save her and hid his face in fear;
Turning his head, he saw her blood mix with his tear.
The yellow dust spread wide, the wind blew desolate;
A serpentine plank path led to cloud-capped Sword Gate.
Below the Eyebrow Mountains wayfarers were few;
In fading sunlight royal standards lost their hue.
On western waters blue and western mountains green
The monarch’s heart was daily gnawed by sorrow keen.
The moon viewed from his tent shed a soul-searing light,
The bells heard in night rain made a heart-rendingsound.
Suddenly turned the tide.Returning from his flight,
The monarch could not tear himself away from the ground
Where ‘mid the clods beneath the slope he couldn’t forget
The fair-faced Lady Yang, who was unfairly slain.
He looked at ministers, with tears his robe was wet;
They rode east to the capital, but with loose rein.
Back, he found her pond and garden in the old place,
With lotus in the lake and willows by the hall.
Willow leaves like her brows and lotus like her face;
At the sight of all these, how could his tears not fall
Or when in vernal breeze were peach and plum full-blown
Or when in autumn rain parasol leaves were shed?
In western as in southern court was grass o’ergrown;
With fallen leaves unswept the marble steps turned red.
Actors, although still young, began to have hair grey;
Eunuchs and waiting maids looked old in palace deep.
Fireflies flitting the hall, mutely he pined away;
The lonely lampwick burned out; still he could not sleep.
Slowly beat drums and rang bells; night began to grow long;
Bright shone the Milky Way; daybreak seemed to come late.
The lovebird tiles grew chilly with hoar frost so strong,
And his kingfisher quilt was cold, not shared by a mate.
One long, long year the dead and the living were parted;
Her soul came not in dreams to see the brokenhearted.
A Taoist sorcerer came tothe palace door,
Skilled to summon the spirit from the other shore.
Moved by the monarch’s yearning for the departed fair,
He was ordered to seek for her everywhere.
Borne on the air, like flash of lightning he flew;
In heaven and on earth he searched through and through.
Up to the azure vault and down to deepest place,
Nor above nor below could he e’er find her trace.
He learned that on the sea were fairy mountains proud
That now appeared, now disappeared amid the cloud
Of rainbow colours where rose magnificent bowers
And dwelt so many fairies as graceful as flowers.
Among them was a queen whose name was Ever True;
Her snow-white skin and sweet face might afford a clue.
Knocking at western gate of palace hall, he bade
The porter fair to inform the queen’s waiting maid.
When she heard there came the monarch’s embassy,
The queen was startled out of dreams in her canopy.
Pushing aside the pillow, she rose and got dressed,
Passing through silver screen and pearl shade to meet theguest.
Her cloudlike hair awry, not full awake at all,
Her flowery cap slanted, she came into the hall.
The wind blew up her fairy sleeves and made them float
As if she danced the “Rainbow Skirt and Feathered Coat.”
Her jade-white face crisscrossed with tears in lonely world
Like a spray of pear blossoms in spring rain impearled.
She bade him thank her lord, lovesick and brokenhearted;
They knew nothing of each other after they parted.
Love and happiness long ended within palace walls;
Days and months appeared long in the fairyland halls.
Turning her head and fixing on the earth her gaze,
She saw no capital ’mid clouds of dust and haze.
To show her love was deep, she took out keepsakes old
For him to carry back, hairpin and case of gold.
Keeping one side of the case and one wing of the pin,
She sent to her dear lord the other half of the twin.
“If our two hearts as firm as the gold should remain.
In heaven or on earth we’ll sometime meet again.”
At parting she confided to the messenger
A secret vow known only to her lord and her.
On seventh day of seventh moon when none was near,
At midnight in Long Life Hall he whispered in her ear,
“On high, we’d be two lovebirds flying wing to wing;
On earth, two trees with branches twined from spring tospring.”
The boundless sky and endless earth may pass away,
But this vow unfulfilled will be regretted for aye.
*Yang Yu-huan(719-756) was the favourite mistress of Emperor Xuan
Zong (reigned 725-768) of the Tang Dynasty.
** The revolt broke out in755 and forced the emperor to flee from the
capital.
