翻译试笔一则

cicerocicero

成都的街道数以百计，若以古雅和诗意而言，则莫过于琴台路。据世人所传，大才子司马相如先生与他的心上人卓文君女士在此当垆卖酒，虽然究其目的并不是为了活跃经济，而是为了对卓文君女士的老爹表示抗议，可这并不影响那段爱情往事成为后人们津津乐道的话题。
在琴台路，入目的都是一色的仿古建筑，明知这不过是今人的怀古之作，可两旁典雅的店招，引人注目的画像，间或的两三棵小树，如果不是车来车往，如过不是从店铺里传来的流行音乐，你会恍然地以为自己进入了时空隧道，行走在千年前的街道上。在一个千篇一律的都市里，入目的都是千篇一律的灰色楼房。当我们的眼睛疲倦了，当我们穿过喧闹的长街走进琴台路，那些碧树红瓦便让人眼前一亮，心便宽了起来。倘使我们相信有前世今生，那么，在前世的轮回中，我们又怎么能断然否定，自己就不会是司马相如时代的成都一介布衣，曾亲眼目睹了卓文君女士如雪的凝脂与顾盼的美目呢？
… …
—— “摩登琴台”，聂作平，《成都晚报》2003-6-22
Streets in Chengdu are of hundreds, yet among which, with regard to classic beauty and poetic flavor, none is superior to the Qintai Street. According to the folklore, in the Han Dynasty, it was somewhere right here that Sima Xiangru the great man of letters and his sweetheart Zhuo Wenjun situated their liquor shop. To be frank, their liquor-selling was not oriented toward a booming market but taken up as a protest against her daddy’s refusal of their marriage; however, this proves no obstacle for a love story of that long ago to delight people through to the present.
In the Qintai Street, what meet your eyes are all structures archaized. While we know for sure that they are no more than souvenirs by modern people to accommodate their feelings for the ancient times, in a context of refined signboards, impressive portraits and an occasional couple of young trees, if the traffic’s coming and going or the popular music flowing out of the shops could be further removed, you would lose yourself in a trance and suspect whether you were trans-placed in the street of a thousand years ago via the time tunnel. In a city of no unique features, your hopeful eyes can only be failed with repeated scenes of gray cement works. When you become tired of the dull sameness after another long and noisy block, the Qintai Street, its emerald trees and crimson tiles do brighten your sights and broaden your minds. If we were true believers of the Buddhists’ theory of transmigration, then, for one of our preexistences, how could we deny we were practically common citizens of Sima’s Chengdu and had appreciated with our own eyes Zhuo Wenjun’s grace?