At first it had no name. It was the thing itself, the vivid thing. It was his friend. On windy days it danced, demented, waving wild arms, or in the silence of evening drowsed and dreamed, swaying in the blue, the goldeny air. Even at night it did not go away. Wrapped in his truckle bed, he could hear it stirring darkly outside in the dark, all the long night long. There were others, nearer to him, more vivid still than this, they came and went, talking, but they were wholly familiar, almost a part of himself, while it, steadfast and aloof, belonged to the mysterious outside, to the wind and the weather and the goldeny blue air. It was part of the world, and yet it was his friend.
Look, Nicolas, look! See the big tree!
Tree. That was its name. And also: the linden. They were nice words. He had known them a long time before he knew what they meant. They did not mean themselves, they were nothing in themselves, they meant the dancing singing thing outside. In wind, in silence, at night, in the changing air, it changed and yet was changelessly the tree, the linden tree. That was strange.
Everything had a name, but although every name was nothing without the thing named, the thing cared nothing for its name, had no need of a name, and was itself only. And then there were the names that signified no substantial thing, as linden and tree signified that dark dancer. His mother asked him who did he love the best. Love did not dance, nor tap the window with frantic fingers, love had no leafy arms to shake, yet when she spoke that name that named nothing, some impalpable but real thing within him responded as if to a summons, as if it had heard its name spoken. That was very strange.
He soon forgot about these enigmatic matters, and learned to talk as others talked, full of conviction, unquestioningly.
The sky is blue, the sun is gold, the linden tree is green. Day is light, it ends, night falls, and then it is dark. You sleep, and in the morning wake again. But a day will come when you will not wake. That is death. Death is sad. Sadness is what happiness is not. And so on. How simple it all was, after all! There was no need even to think about it. He had only to be, and life would do the rest, would send day to follow day until there were no days left, for him, and then he would go to Heaven and be an angel. Hell was under the ground.
Matthew Mark Luke and John
Bless the bed that I lie on
If I die before I wake
Ask holy God my soul to take
He peered from behind clasped hands at his mother kneeling beside him in the candlelight. Under a burnished coif of coiled hair her face was pale and still, like the face of the Madonna in the picture. Her eyes were closed, and her lips moved, mouthing mutely the pious lines as he recited them aloud. When he stumbled on the hard words she bore him up gently, in a wonderfully gentle voice. He loved her the best, he said. She rocked him in her arms and sang a song.
See saw Margery Daw
This little chicken
Got lost in the straw
哥白尼博士
一开始它并没有名字。它只是鲜活的生命本身而已。它是他的朋友。在刮风的日子里，它发狂般地舞动着，胡乱地摇晃着手臂；而在沉静的傍晚，它昏昏欲睡地，仿佛做着梦般在湛蓝金色的天光中摇晃着。即使到了夜晚它也不曾离开。整个长夜里，当他裹着被子躺在带有脚轮的矮床上时，也能听到它在屋外的黑暗中窸窸窣窣地摇摆。有别的事物离他更近，且也比它更鲜活，他们交谈着，来来去去。对他来说他们是再亲近不过的，几乎可以算是组成他的世界的一部分。然而它呢，坚定而疏离的，是属于神秘的外部世界的，属于风，天气和金色湛蓝的天光。它是整个世界的一部分，而同时它也是他的朋友。
“看啊，尼古拉斯，快看，看那棵大树！”
树。那是它的名字。而它还有另一个名字：椴树。无论哪个都是动听的字眼。早在他理解它们的意思前他就听说过它们。它们不代表它们自己，它们本身没有任何意思，它们代表的是那个在屋外起舞又唱歌的东西。在风中，在寂静中，在夜晚里，在不停变换的天色里，树，那棵椴树，它变化莫测却又未曾真正改变过。那真是不可思议啊。
所有的事物都有名字，尽管任何名字一旦脱离了事物本身便毫无意义，但事物却对它的名字毫无兴趣，也并不需要名字，它就只是它自己。也有些名字代表着无实体的事物，就好像“树”还有“椴树”都指代那位在黑暗里的舞者。母亲曾经问过他最爱的是谁。爱并不会起舞，也不能用手指疯狂地敲打窗户，爱也没有枝叶繁盛的胳膊可以摇晃。然而当她说出这个未曾指代任何东西的字眼的时候，他体内有一些无形却真实存在的东西仿佛听到了传唤，仿佛被叫到了自己的名字一样做出了回应。那真是非常的不可思议。
他很快忘记了这些令人费解的想法，并学会了像其他人一样，用一种确信的、毫无疑问的口吻说话。
天空是蓝色的，太阳是金色的，椴树是绿色的。白天是明亮的，当白天结束，夜晚就会降临，一切沉入黑暗。入睡，接着在早晨醒来，然而总有一天你将不再醒来，那就是死亡，死亡是悲伤的，而悲伤意味着幸福的反面，诸如此类。这一切都是多么的简单啊，甚至没有去思考它们的必要。他只需要活着，剩下的就交给生活，而生活会为他安排好一天又一天，直至没有日子剩下，那时他就可以前往天堂成为天使。而地狱远在地下。
马太，马可，路加，约翰，
请降福我于此床畔
若我醒转前身已往
请主携此魂去天堂
他在烛光中透过合十祈祷的双手偷偷看着跪在身边的母亲。在盘得整整齐齐的卷发之下，她的脸庞苍白而平静，仿佛画中的圣母玛利亚。当她紧闭双眼，翕动着嘴唇，默念着这些虔诚的祷文时，他在她身旁出声将它们念出来，当他因为念不出复杂的词而停顿的时候，她便会用一种格外柔和的语气温柔地提醒他。他说他最爱的就是她。母亲便将他抱在怀中边轻轻摇晃，边哼唱着童谣。
摇啊摇玛格丽朵
这只小鸡仔啊
迷失在了稻草垛
Comments of translating Doctor Copernicus
XINYI YU and YANQING WANG
There are two kinds of difficulties in translating Doctor Copernicus into Chinese: one is the differences in English and Chinese language and the other is the differences in cultural background.
Firstly, it is difficult to understand the text since the narrative begins with personal pronouns. We are confused whether “it” and “they” should be translated into pronouns that refer to thing or person, because Chinese distinguish the two: “it” can be translated into “它” which refers to a thing, or “他” which refers to a person. Moreover, since the story is narrated from the child’s perspective, we find it hard to represent it in Chinese. For example, although the linden is described as Nicholas’s “friend”, there is no intimate interaction between Nicholas and linden like children’s literature. It makes it difficult to translate in a childlike tone. Through the process of the translation, we thought it was difficult to get the balance between written language and spoken language as well. For example, since the sixth paragraph (which begins with “The sky is blue, the sun is gold, the linden tree is green…”) is better translated into spoken language in order to show the paragraph describes by Nicolas’s perspective, we have to choose words that sound colloquial but blend in with the overall writerly style.
Secondly, because of the differences in religion and culture, imaging and describing the scene of the bed-time prayer to readers is another difficult point. The hardest part is that since some words do not have the exact corresponding words in Chinese and we have to make effort to explain them in Chinese in order to make the translation more understandable. For example, “truckle bed” is translated as “带脚轮的矮床”, which means “the low bed with casters”, and “clasped hands” as “合十祈祷的双手”, which means “put the hands together for praying”.
Finally, the most difficult point is translating the prayer and the nursery rhyme, because they can be translated into either classical poetry form or modern poetry form in Chinese. We need to choose the suitable words to keep the rhythm of the poem, and at the same time, we have to pay attention to the selection of words appropriate to the poetry form. This means that we sometimes made choice of preserving Chinese rhythm at the expense of changing the meaning of the original text. For example, “If I die before I wake / ask holy god my soul to take.” can be understood as a traditional common prayer. However, if we turn the poem into an ancient Chinese version, it becomes a classical poetry. Similarly, we face a dilemma when we try to translate it into a modern poem, in that the nuance does not fit the context properly.
To sum up, although we were met with a lot of difficulty in the translation process, we enjoyed the freshness of Banville’s text and felt that we improved our skills in reading and translating English literary texts. Furthermore, the original text impresses us with its distinctive narrative styles. We are looking forward to enjoying the rest of the novel.
Supervisor’s Note:
Xinyi YU and Yanqing WANG are Chinese students studying English Literature at the Japanese university, Ochanomizu University. Since the supervisor has no command of Chinese, we conducted the translation project as follows. The students made their own translations, referring to the Chinese translations already uploaded at the Banville Project site. Then they peer reviewed their translations, and had discussions about their differences, questioning the supervisor about the nuance of the words, phrases and sentences of the original. They had an adventurous experience of moving among three very different languages (English, Chinese and Japanese) in their translation process.
John Banville