雄伯手記970210
中英對照細讀「紀傑克」的「神經質主體」,原是為了幫助觀念的釐清,卻不知不覺地變成像啄木鳥般挑食誤譯的毛毛蟲,大概是當了三十幾年中學英語教師,句子分析教學法養成的習性。
例一,第535頁:
「你是誰?散發著惡臭,是從已經清理過的房間出來的!你自己是否就是你必須清除的最後一塊髒東西!」
“ Who are you? Stinking, be gone from the room that has been cleaned! Would that you were the last of the filth which you had to remove!”
譯者顯然忽略了be gone帶有祈使的意涵(滾開或走開),Would that 等於I wish 有但願的假設願望。
例二,第536頁:
因此,在劇本終了時,是這位革命派死刑執行者,而非充滿憐憫之情的人道主義者,變成一個殺人機器,而後者被宣告是革命的敵人,並被黨的合唱隊判以處決。這位革命派死刑執行者本人雖然被處決,但這件辯証的反例並非僅僅削弱(採取的手段)的立論,而是提供了「必須除去的最後一塊髒污」的絕佳例子。
At the end of the play, it is thus the revolutionary executioner turned into a killing machine, not the compassionate humanist, who is proclaimed the enemy of the revolution and condemned to execution by the party Chorus. Far from simply undermining The Measure Taken with its dialectical counter-example, however, the execution of the revolutionary executioner himself in Mauser offers a perfect example of the “ last of the filth which had to be removed’.
It is …who 是強調句法,強調被宣告是革命的敵人的是前者,那位變成一個殺人機器的革命派死刑執行者the revolutionary executioner turned into a killing machine 而不是後者,充滿憐憫之情的人道主義者the compassionate humanist。
The Party Chorus 譯成黨的合唱隊亦令人困惑,原意應指黨團口徑一致地判決的公審法庭。