At first it had no name. It was the thing itself, the vivid thing. It was his friend. On windy days it danced, demented, waving wild arms, or in the silence of evening drowsed and dreamed, swaying in the blue, the goldeny air. Even at night it did not go away. Wrapped in his truckle bed, he could hear it stirring darkly outside in the dark, all the long night long. There were others, nearer to him, more vivid still than this, they came and went, talking, but they were wholly familiar, almost a part of himself, while it, steadfast and aloof, belonged to the mysterious outside, to the wind and the weather and the goldeny blue air. It was part of the world, and yet it was his friend.
Look, Nicolas, look! See the big tree!
Tree. That was its name. And also: the linden. They were nice words. He had known them a long time before he knew what they meant. They did not mean themselves, they were nothing in themselves, they meant the dancing singing thing outside. In wind, in silence, at night, in the changing air, it changed and yet was changelessly the tree, the linden tree. That was strange.
Everything had a name, but although every name was nothing without the thing named, the thing cared nothing for its name, had no need of a name, and was itself only. And then there were the names that signified no substantial thing, as linden and tree signified that dark dancer. His mother asked him who did he love the best. Love did not dance, nor tap the window with frantic fingers, love had no leafy arms to shake, yet when she spoke that name that named nothing, some impalpable but real thing within him responded as if to a summons, as if it had heard its name spoken. That was very strange.
He soon forgot about these enigmatic matters, and learned to talk as others talked, full of conviction, unquestioningly.
The sky is blue, the sun is gold, the linden tree is green. Day is light, it ends, night falls, and then it is dark. You sleep, and in the morning wake again. But a day will come when you will not wake. That is death. Death is sad. Sadness is what happiness is not. And so on. How simple it all was, after all! There was no need even to think about it. He had only to be, and life would do the rest, would send day to follow day until there were no days left, for him, and then he would go to Heaven and be an angel. Hell was under the ground.
Matthew Mark Luke and John
Bless the bed that I lie on
If I die before I wake
Ask holy God my soul to take
He peered from behind clasped hands at his mother kneeling beside him in the candlelight. Under a burnished coif of coiled hair her face was pale and still, like the face of the Madonna in the picture. Her eyes were closed, and her lips moved, mouthing mutely the pious lines as he recited them aloud. When he stumbled on the hard words she bore him up gently, in a wonderfully gentle voice. He loved her the best, he said. She rocked him in her arms and sang a song.
See saw Margery Daw
This little chicken
Got lost in the straw
起初它没有自己的名字。它只是它自己，那个鲜活动人的生命。它是他的友人。在起风的日子里，它舞动着，随风疯狂地挥舞着它的手臂，而到了傍晚万物沉静之际，它沉睡着陷入梦乡里，在那湛蓝且金黄美好的天空中摇曳着。哪怕是到了晚上，它也不曾走远。只见他被紧紧包裹在婴儿床上的时候，他也能听到它静静潜伏在屋外的一片黑暗中，整整一夜。那里还有其他东西，离他更近，比这更加鲜活动人，他们说着话，来来去去，但（他对）他们更加熟悉，基本算是他所习惯的世界的一部分，而它呢，坚定而疏离的，是属于那神秘莫测的外界，是属于那风，属于那四季，属于那金子般美好又湛蓝的天空。它是这世界的一员，却也是他的朋友。
看啊，尼古拉斯，快看！看那颗大树！
树，是它的名字。而它也被叫做椴树。都是让人喜爱的称呼。早在他理解那些字眼的意义之前，他就已经认得它们很久了。那些字眼并不指代他们自己，他们本身并无任何意义，而指代的是在屋外翩翩起舞肆意吟唱的东西。在风中，在寂静里，在夜里，在那变化莫测的天空中，那棵树，那棵椴树，它随时变化但却又永恒不变，那株椴树。那真是不可思议。
万物都有自己的名字，但一旦离开了被赋予的意义，名字也就毫无意义了。事物对它的名字毫不在意，也并不需要，事物不在意也不需要它的名字，它就是它自己。再说有些名字并不能指代实物，就好像椴树和树其实都指代着那暗夜里的舞者一般。他的母亲曾经问他谁是他的挚爱。爱不会起舞，也不会疯狂地用手指敲打着窗户，爱也没有那枝叶繁茂的枝桠用来挥舞，但当她说出那个无所指的名字时，他感受到了心中一些难以琢磨却又切实存在的回应，似乎是在召唤着它，似乎那是它听到了别人叫唤它名字时的一种回应。啊，那可真是不可思议。
他很快忘记了这些莫名其妙的想法，然后学着别人的模样交谈着，言辞凿凿，煞有介事。
天空是湛蓝的，太阳是金黄的，椴树是苍绿的。白天是明亮的，太阳西落，夜幕降临，复又是夜色。你在夜晚入睡，又在翌日清晨苏醒。但终有一日你会沉睡不醒。那是死亡。死亡是伤感的。悲伤正是快乐的反面。如此之类。原来它竟是如此浅显易懂的道理啊！甚至没有必要去深究它的意义。他只需要活着，其余的就交给生活，生活会为他献上日复一日直到他的阳寿耗尽，然后他会去到天堂，化为天使。地狱在那地下。
马修，马克，路加和约翰
愿赐福于吾长眠之床
若吾永寐至一世已往
邀主以携吾残魂令归
烛光中，透过交叠祈祷的双手的缝隙，他凝视着跪在身侧的母亲。在那熨烫梳理整齐的如同戴了卷发帽的秀发映衬下，她的侧脸苍白而恬静，宛若油画中的圣母玛利亚。她轻阖着双眼，唇畔翕动，默念着祷文，而他则是朗朗念出。当他无法念出那些复杂的字词时，她会用那柔和的嗓音，温柔地指导提示他。他说，他最爱的是她。她将他揽在怀里轻轻摇晃，唱了一首歌谣。
看呀看玛洁朵
这小小的鸡仔呀
在稻草堆里走丢咯
Comments of translating Doctor Copernicus
XINYI YU and YANQING WANG
There are two kinds of difficulties in translating Doctor Copernicus into Chinese: one is the differences in English and Chinese language and the other is the differences in cultural background.
Firstly, it is difficult to understand the text since the narrative begins with personal pronouns. We are confused whether “it” and “they” should be translated into pronouns that refer to thing or person, because Chinese distinguish the two: “it” can be translated into “它” which refers to a thing, or “他” which refers to a person. Moreover, since the story is narrated from the child’s perspective, we find it hard to represent it in Chinese. For example, although the linden is described as Nicholas’s “friend”, there is no intimate interaction between Nicholas and linden like children’s literature. It makes it difficult to translate in a childlike tone. Through the process of the translation, we thought it was difficult to get the balance between written language and spoken language as well. For example, since the sixth paragraph (which begins with “The sky is blue, the sun is gold, the linden tree is green…”) is better translated into spoken language in order to show the paragraph describes by Nicolas’s perspective, we have to choose words that sound colloquial but blend in with the overall writerly style.
Secondly, because of the differences in religion and culture, imaging and describing the scene of the bed-time prayer to readers is another difficult point. The hardest part is that since some words do not have the exact corresponding words in Chinese and we have to make effort to explain them in Chinese in order to make the translation more understandable. For example, “truckle bed” is translated as “带脚轮的矮床”, which means “the low bed with casters”, and “clasped hands” as “合十祈祷的双手”, which means “put the hands together for praying”.
Finally, the most difficult point is translating the prayer and the nursery rhyme, because they can be translated into either classical poetry form or modern poetry form in Chinese. We need to choose the suitable words to keep the rhythm of the poem, and at the same time, we have to pay attention to the selection of words appropriate to the poetry form. This means that we sometimes made choice of preserving Chinese rhythm at the expense of changing the meaning of the original text. For example, “If I die before I wake / ask holy god my soul to take.” can be understood as a traditional common prayer. However, if we turn the poem into an ancient Chinese version, it becomes a classical poetry. Similarly, we face a dilemma when we try to translate it into a modern poem, in that the nuance does not fit the context properly.
To sum up, although we were met with a lot of difficulty in the translation process, we enjoyed the freshness of Banville’s text and felt that we improved our skills in reading and translating English literary texts. Furthermore, the original text impresses us with its distinctive narrative styles. We are looking forward to enjoying the rest of the novel.
Supervisor’s Note:
Xinyi YU and Yanqing WANG are Chinese students studying English Literature at the Japanese university, Ochanomizu University. Since the supervisor has no command of Chinese, we conducted the translation project as follows. The students made their own translations, referring to the Chinese translations already uploaded at the Banville Project site. Then they peer reviewed their translations, and had discussions about their differences, questioning the supervisor about the nuance of the words, phrases and sentences of the original. They had an adventurous experience of moving among three very different languages (English, Chinese and Japanese) in their translation process.
John Banville