《英译大家诗》（二十一）

         好了歌解    （曹雪芹：红楼梦）

陋室空堂，当年笏满床；

衰草枯杨，曾为歌舞场；

蛛丝儿结满雕梁，绿纱今又在蓬窗上。

说甚么脂正浓、粉正香，如何两鬓又成霜？

昨日黄土陇头埋白骨，今霄红绡帐底卧鸳鸯。

金满箱，银满箱，转眼乞丐人皆谤；

正叹他人命不长，哪知自己归来丧？

训有方，保不定日后作强梁。

择膏粱，谁承望流落在烟花巷！

因嫌纱帽小，致使枷锁扛；

昨怜破袄寒，今嫌紫蟒长；

乱哄哄你方唱罢我登场，反认他乡是故乡；

甚荒唐，到头来都是为他人作嫁衣裳。

注释：他乡：世俗世界里或功名富贵、声色犬马，或纵恶为善还祈求荫庇子孙的生活；

故乡：超脱尘世归于空灵虚幻或死亡终结之意。

 (Ts’ao-Hsueh-Ch’in :《The dream of the Red Chamber》（Hung-lou-meng）

Undo the fag end of Song

Its room vacant and doors smashed,

in years before there was a bundle of jade-ribbon on bed;

 at the fag-end of autumn

there are rotten willows and grass brown.

O says there was a wide field for some statue-like

dancing and singing in the scepter-honored before days.

Still there are thousands of tiny dusty cobwebs

Left that covered those beams and pillars

caved with couplets&sculptures in elegant arts;

but there are nice screens of green-silk with traceries

again see its rouges, the perfume of face and lipsticks,

It is a marvelous stuff

that could stop the timid albescent hair on the temples.

O says, the past day the dead body someone else’s

      you’d just buried into sorrow earth,

    today beneath the reddish-silk curtain

you were as a pair of mandarin duck, right In fire of love.

In order to deserve a niche in the temple of fame,

But never knew some day the soul’s fortune

to be put one string on by fire and sword for living.

For always gold and silver but In two shakes of duck’s tail, the man appeared being a dead duck

sent as a fink away with flea in ear.

While sighing for other man’s short live and back to safe path, who couldn’t know the knell himself near?

Married with a first-rater, whoever someone knew fatally neglected to be dressed up fit to kill in a street!

complaining of the low ranking led to be jailed bar none

Yesterday what pity of him that cold wind penetrated

  the rags so far he had wore through; today

he gets the violet-snake pattern dresses, disliked.

So, The pattern of the game keeps changing: while your show-end is so nearer

 I am ready for my turn: frustrate either real or dreamt, wherever is the place we are standing at

as to symbolize by a home-gesture

in relation to the life beyond

 Ironically not knowing the dowers bereft

he made only for others.

注解：It is a marvelous stuff that could stop the albescent hair on the temples.真正的句意同字面相反。