苏轼·《初到黄州》英译

自笑平生为口忙，老来事业转荒唐。 <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

长江绕郭知鱼美，好竹连山觉笋香。

逐客不妨员外置，诗人例作水曹郎。

只惭无补丝毫事，尚费官家压酒囊。

 

Upon My Arrival in Huangzhou

Su Shi

 

I laugh at my life for being kept busy by my mouth;

My career, in my senior years, has gone terribly awry.

Living in the loop of the Yangtze, I have a taste for fish;

Bamboos hill after hill, I’m keen on their delicious shoots.

An exile? Why not put him in an out-of-payroll position;

Poets, in such cases, usually join the ranks of water boys¹,

Embarrassing, though, for no duties required whatsoever,

Not to say, in the form of wine bags² the official handouts.

 

1. Water boys: here facetiously referring to scholar-officials banished to become sinecure employees at local water departments.

2. “Water boys” were sometimes paid by the government in kinds such wine bags (surplus bags from distilleries)

 

（任治稷 译）

 

Upon Arriving in Huangzhou

Su Shi

 

My mouth’s always busy, eating, composing, or speaking out,

And now I’ve aged and my position’s turned ridiculous.

Oh well, the fish taste just as good on the edge of town,

Where the bamboo groves and the sweet shoots are the earthiest.

It matters little that I’m useless, banished, barely a guest;

Poets are known to make great inspectors of waterways,

And the work I do can’t touch the pay I get.

That bag of wine they send is surely wasted.

 

（Gordon Osing 译）