有奖『翻译练习』（第五期）（已奖励）

If we don't need to reply the letter,it sure to be a  happy time to read a friend's letter,especially an exoticism airmail. Writting back  is the cost for that happy time.However,the happy time will be reduced and ended if you take long time or frequently not answer the letters,in the mean time,the friendship will break off too.Till one day,under an expiatory mood,you take upon yourself to reply them.After wasted so much time,the happy time of reading letters will be replace by the bitter time of owing answer of letters.I am a recidivism of this crime,make hundreds of  friends,almost everyone could enumerate my criminal records.British poet Audenson said,he often housed up to read his detective fictions without replied the important letters.Once Wangerter said to Hangli:"I know many person,and come to London with full longing of brighten future,,but I break down after few months,because they have the habit to write back."Apparently,Wangerter deems that if want to live well,we have to be free from the vice of witting back.Obviously,I am not the only  person who afraid of answering a letter.
不好意思，第一次贵版，献丑了。：））

已经很不错了，继续加油吧！
      by  montana

montana

参考译文：
  To get letters from friends, especially airmail letters from overseas that bear the stamp of exotic climes, is unquestionably one of life’s greatest pleasures, provided, that is, that they do not call for a reply. Answering letters is a heavy price to pay for the enjoyment of reading letters. The inevitable consequence of tardiness or infrequency in answering letters is a corresponding reduction in and ultimate cessation of, the pleasure of receiving letters, in which case friendship is prematurely broken off, until the day in sackcloth and ashes you summon up the willpower to put pen to paper again. Through this dilly-dallying the pleasure of receiving letters has turned to the misery of owing letters. I am an old lag in this respect: practically every one of the friends I have made in my comings and goings can recite from my crime sheet. W. H. Auden once admitted that he was in the habit of shelving important letters, preferring instead to curl up with a detective novel; while Oscar Wilde remarked to Henley: “I have known men who come to London full of bright prospects and seen them complete wrecks in a few months through a habit of answering letters.” Clearly Wilde’s view was that to enjoy life one should renounce the bad habit of answering letters. So I am not the only one to be faint-hearted in the regard.

montana

本文由台湾诗人余光中所写。
①此处“风云”指模样、情调。“带着异国风云”也可理解成“带着异国风情的邮票”。翻译时可灵活处理。
②“蹉跎”此处意为“磨蹭，犹豫，拖延”。
③此处“罪人”不能译为guilty person或sinner，有时汉语用词比较夸张，为的是达到某种效果，英译时未必照译不可。
④奥登指 W. H. Auden。
⑤王尔德指Oscar Wilde。

montana

本期翻译作品提交截止，欢迎大家继续跟贴讨论。

montana

个人以为余老先生的文笔、风格似乎和五四时期的白话文差不多。虽整篇文章大意容易理解，但落实到个别字词上还是有点困难。在平时的翻译实践中，时常感到自己中文功底薄，不是理解不到位，就是表达不生动。前面的路还很长啊！

ellencheng

斑竹的参考译文,妙不可言,其中修辞典故,老道老道!!!!