竹枝词

唐 · 刘禹锡

杨柳青青江水平，

闻郎江上唱歌声。

东边日出西边雨，

道是无晴却有晴。

Bamboo Branch Song

Between the willows green the river flows along;

My gallant on the stream is heard to sing a song.

The west is veiled in rain, the east enjoys sunshine.

My gallant is as deep in love as the day is fine.

(Translated by Xu Yuanchong)

Bamboo Branch Song was originally a folk song (民歌) from Sichuan province. People would play drums and dance while singing the song. The poet Liu Yuxi, who lived during the Tang Dynasty (618-907), quite liked this song. He wrote 11 new lyrics for it. All of them use simple and lively language to describe both local life and romance (爱情).

This poem is the first in Liu's series. It describes a young girl's love for a man. The girl is sitting by the river under the willows. The man she loves is singing on the river. The poet uses a pun (双关语) to describe the girl's feelings. "Youqing", or sunny, sounds the same as "in love with someone" in Chinese, while "wuqing", or rainy, sounds the same as "not in love".

When the girl looks at the sky, the west is rainy, while the east is sunny. This makes the girl confused (困惑的) — should she say it is sunny or rainy? With this pun, it also sounds like "does this man love me or not?"

This wordplay made the poem popular. It vividly describes the feelings of a girl who is eager (渴望的) for love, but too shy to talk about it. The pun also gives the poem a sense of humor.

这首诗最成功之处就是运用双关的修辞表现女方复杂的心理活动：原诗中的“晴”字表面说天气，实则表达少女对男子的“情”。这样的双关语在英文中很难直接对应，而许老选择了灵活变通的手法，把原文中女孩揣测、不确定的语气转化成较为肯定的判断，译为“天气有多晴朗, 心上人对我的爱就有多深”，由此将“晴”(day is fine) 和“情”(deep in love) 同时表达出来，在妥协中找到了最佳方案。译文还忠实于此诗的民歌属性，以aabb的韵脚结尾，读来如歌谣般朗朗上口。

转自“学习强国”的《21世纪报》