论文总字数：29717字

摘 要

莎士比亚悲剧麦克白讲述了苏格兰勇士麦克白在凯旋途中遇到三个女巫并预言他会成为苏格兰国王。麦克白在野心的驱使和妻子的怂恿下谋杀了国王并登上了苏格兰王位。而在悲剧的最后，麦克白在屠杀与连续的内战中走向灭亡。根据泰勒《翻译三原则》的翻译理论，译者在翻译《麦克白》是不仅要从字里行间读懂莎士比亚的内容与想法，还要能从一个优秀的作家和艺术家的角度去理解作品的精神。译者不仅要做到译文内容准确，更要能通过译文呈现莎士比亚的风格。此外，本文探究了莎士比亚在《麦克白》中个人语言的翻译。译者对不同文化里的神话传说的理解在莎士比亚作品翻译中也十分重要。

关键词：作品精神；写作风格；作品内容等

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

3. Application of Three Principles 2

3.1 Translation of words in Fourteen Century 2

3.2 Translation of style and manner of Shakespeare 4

3.3 Translation of Macbeth"s composition 6

4. Translation in Shakespeare’s Language 8

4.1 Translation of Shakespeare’s rhetoric expression 8

4.2 Translation of prophecy and unnatural phenomena in Ancient China and Macbeth 9

4.3 Translation of heroism in Macbeth and Greek tragedies 11

5. Conclusion 12

Works Cited 13

1. Introduction

Macbeth is a brave general in the battlefield. However, he meets three weird sisters who tell him that he shall be king in the future. Although he is honored by the current king Duncan, enjoying people"s favor, Macbeth"s dark desire has been fired up by the witches. After hearing the prophesy from Macbeth, his wife pushes him to murder King Duncan. Macbeth becomes the king, but pathetically he has to force himself to commit more and more murders to protect his crown. Macbeth soon becomes a calculating tyrannical ruler and dies in bloodbath.

For the purpose that a translator may be enabled to give a complete transcript of the ideas of the original work, it is indispensably necessary that he should have a perfect knowledge of the language of the original and a competent acquaintance with Macbeth. If he is deficient in either of these requisites, he can never be certain of thoroughly comprehending the sense of Shakespeare. The translator must consider the culture difference in literature translation. In other words, he should maintain a large amount of knowledge containing the culture and history of both the source language country and the target language country. Then he shall convey the sense and spirit of the original one and express them in the best appropriate way which could be accepted easily by the readers in the target language country.

In Essay on the Principles of Translation, if a translator expects to master Shakespeare’s ideas perfectly, here are three principles a translator should follow in the process of translating Macbeth. The principles in question are concerned with language, background and culture, and the thesis explores the application of these principles. Then the paper probes into Shakespeare’s language in aspects of rhetoric expression, prophecy and heroism.

2. Literature Review

Alexander Fraser Tytler’s data analysis provides the three translation principles. The translation should convey a complete transcript and style and manner of writing of the original work. And his translation should have all the ease of the original composition. In terms of the application of the three principles in Macbeth, the thesis combines Shakespeare’s private language, history and culture background.

Eugene F. Shewmaker finds that plays were not regarded as literature. The words were written to be spoken as popular entertainments in Shakespeare’s age. (Shewmaker 56) Following this rule in translation, the thesis probes into retaining the original flavor of Shakespeare’s drama language in Macbeth’s translation. Directors in Lincoln Center Theater believe that the play Macbeth contains some of the most exquisite and articulate language in Shakespeare"s canon. The play reveals itself to be Shakespeare"s most powerful and darkest nightmare and a terrifying parable for our own time.

Francis George Steiner made a lot of studies on supernatural phenomena like ghosts or witches. However, there’s no comparison between witches in Western myths and divination in ancient China. The thesis presents culture differences not only in tales, but also in heroism between Greek tragedy Oedipus and the play Macbeth.

A Chinese translator Zhu Shenghao’s edition has be considered as the most authoritative translation of Macbeth in China. His translation skills and strategies in Macbeth give the thesis a lot of valuable examples in the application of Tytler’s three principles.

3. Application of Three Principles

According to the general law of translation in Alexander Fraser Tyler’s Essay on the Principles of Translation, the translator can make these improvements in translating. Firstly, the translation should give a complete transcript of the ideas of original works. Secondly, the style and manner of writing in a translation should be of the same character with that of the original. Thirdly, a translation should have all the ease of the original composition.

3.1 Translation of words in Fourteen Century

The First Principle: The translation should give a complete transcript of the ideas of original works. To catch every idea even just a sparkle in sentences of Macbeth, the translator should maintain British culture and know every detail of Macbeth. So, attention should be paid to the meaning and usage of words in that age.

The language of the original is not British English we use in modern age, it refers to Shakespeare’s dramatic language. In Macbeth, there are verbs with inflective endings and forms in transition from medieval to modern. Vocabulary could be another barrier for translator, there are 29000 words in Shakespeare’s vocabulary, and many of his words have since dropped or changed from common usage. The current meaning of these words may not have been, or have only been in part in Shakespeare’s age. Besides, strange syntax and influence of Latin grammar could make it more difficult to understand. And in Macbeth, characters express thoughts through abundant, powerful images and metaphors.

“A heavy summons lies like lead upon me. And yet I would not sleep.”

This is a part from what Banquo speaks to his son Fleance in Act 2. Close reading could exhibit the details and manifold energies at work. One might begin with the salient words such as heavy, summon and lead.

Master Zhu Shenghao translates this paragraph into “催人入睡的疲倦，像沉重的铅块一样压在我身上。” Powerful force like lead forebodes the shadows in the early scenes and summons Banquo to sleep, but he cannot. And at the end of scene, ringing bell summons Macbeth to commit the murder. Instead of translating “summon” as “呼唤”, Zhu uses “催人入睡” . Zhu’s sentence presents Banquo’s psychology with more vivid details in Chinese and his translation doesn’t twist Shakespeare’s original ideas.

What ought to be the conduct of a translator where the sense is ambiguous? Whether it is allowable for the translator to add to or retrench the ideas of original. With time passing through, it becomes harder and harder for people, no matter which stage they came from, to read Shakespeare. Editors have to select the edition from the aspects of personal judgement, textual probability and scholarly and editorial precedent. Besides, the performances of the same character could be so different on the stage because of the various understanding of the actors. As Shakespeare said, there are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people’s eyes. However, there should not have a thousand Macbeths in a thousand translators’ eyes. When the translator conveys the sense and spirits of the play, he shall keep it clean. There shall not have any thought comes from translator himself. It is not just a play for readers who hold their books, but also for the actors and actresses who have to show these tales to the audience. And we could still find there are a thousand Macbeths in a thousand people’s eyes in the translated version. A qualified translator must equip with the ability of remaining these thousand possibilities to the readers or audience themselves. A translator may communicate with and convey the sense and spirits of the work, but he shall not abuse this liberty.

3.2 Translation of style and manner of Shakespeare

The Second Principle: The style and manner of writing in a translation should be of the same character with that of the original.

The element in Shakespeare’s private language makes possible a crucial, though little understood, linguistic function. People speak to communicate, but also to conceal, to leave unspoken. If the translator expects to give a complete transcript of the ideas of original works, he should comprehend the meaning behind the sentences, digging every character’s thoughts.

The soliloquy is a particularly important phenomenon in tragedy. In Hamlet, as we noticed, neither Guildenstern nor Ophelia soliloquizes, which means that the subjectivity or the sense of self is never privileged that Hamlet is. The play text does not permit them to speak themselves into been in quite the same way. Their motives of their actions and their very natures are constructed by other characters’ speeches.

In the first encounter with Lady Macbeth in scene five, she has two long speeches alone. This is the first time we’ve seen a female character soliloquizing. It’s where we gain access to Lady Macbeth’s hidden ambition and dark desire. Although Macbeth early soliloquies show him interrogating his own desires and motives, both Lady Macbeth soliloquies are addressed not to herself, but to others. In the first, she speaks to the absent Macbeth. This is the first speech of Lady Macbeth, it’s the letter from Macbeth when he heard the prophecy and could not contain his excitement.

“Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be what thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature. It is too full o" the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great; Art not without ambition, but without the illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly, that wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false, and yet wouldst wrongly win.”

Lady Macbeth is afraid that Macbeth’s divined nature will get in the way of achieving his ambition. She claims her nature is too full milk of human kindness to take the violence away to kingship. The word kind in her speech doesn’t mean nice gentle, it means nature in middle English. The phase milk of human kindness shows a broader sense of natural human feeling, the milk from a mother’s breasts could invoke the most nurturing action. Lady Macbeth believes that she has enough milk to set Macbeth free from his hesitation.

She starts her second soliloquy after the messenger reports Duncan’s arrival.

“Come to my woman"s breasts, and take my milk for gall, your murthering ministers. Wherever in your sightless substances; You wait on nature"s mischief!”

Her second speech invokes the darkness and suggests another difference between her and her husband. Macbeth sees the weird sisters, but Lady Macbeth never see them. Unlike Macbeths’ suspicion and hesitation, she desperately invites the power of darkness to possess her. Lady Macbeth is Shakespeare’s human witch who unsexed by spirits of the air (Richetti 322).

When Macbeth shows his divine nature and hesitation, “He hath honor"d me of late, and I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people.” Lady Macbeth redefines a real man in opposition to a coward.

“What beast wast then

That made you break this enterprise to me?  

When you durst do it,

Then you were a man;

And, to be more than what you were,

you would be so much more the man.”

But she ignores the question that weather the witches’ prophesy is a curse. She is reduce the definition of a man to somebody who’s ruthlessly keep his word no matter how terrible the action he is promised to carry out. She is burning with an unquenchable desire to bear the name of a queen.

Lady Macbeth drugs Macbeth attendants and lays daggers ready for the commission of the crime. Macbeth kills the sleeping king while Lady Macbeth waits nearby. When he brings the daggers from the king"s room, Lady Macbeth carries the daggers to the room and smears the drugged attendants with blood.

Following the murder of King Duncan, Lady Macbeth doesn’t appear in the plot for a long time. When Duncan"s sons flee the land in fear for their own lives, Macbeth is appointed king. Without consulting his queen, Macbeth becomes plots other murders in order to secure his throne. When Macbeth is become more crueler and stronger, Lady Macbeth is become fragile. She is suffered from the guilty and frighten of the murder. In her last appearance, she sleepwalks in profound torment. She dies off-stage, with suicide being suggested as its cause, when Malcolm declares that she died by "self and violent hands (Francis George Steiner 32)."

3.3 Translation of Macbeth"s composition in Macbeth

The Third Principle: A translation should have all the ease of the original composition. If a translator expects to make his work clear and coherent, he must figure out these questions. Who Shakespeare writes for and where to play?

At some point in the late 1560s, a simple but very brilliant idea came out. The punters could come to the drama instead of taking drama to the punters. And London is the greatest place for play where thousands had settled, teeming on the edge of the city. In a few decades, modern theatre was born. The theatre became a new kind of communication after the Reformation. The hoi polloi and the gents sat separately in the theatre, going through the same storm of emotion, blood and tears in Shakespeare’s plays.

The play is about killing a king, which is clearly a dangerous idea. The great anxiety that dominates the political history in 16th and 17th Century is that the devil which normally through the agency of the pope and the Antichrist are going to somehow topple Protestant government in England. The political background makes Macbeth a very sensitive play.

Shakespeare"s source for the story Macbeth is the account of Macbeth, King of Scotland; Macduff; and Duncan in Holinshed"s Chronicles, a history of England, Scotland, and Ireland familiar to Shakespeare and his contemporaries. A translator needs to think about the distance between history and Shakespeare’s work, the events in the play differ extensively from the history of the real Macbeth. Scottish history may not reflect the real Macbeth, but it does show us the darkness and cruelness of that world.

The ease of the original composition relates to translator’s literary and history level. And there’s no doubt Master Zhu Shenghao shows us a clear Macbeth’s world in his Chinese edition.

After Macbeth kills the sleeping king and brings the daggers from the king"s room, Lady Macbeth carries the daggers to the room and smears the drugged attendants with blood. At this time, Macbeth makes this speech:

“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood

Clean from my hand?

No, this my hand will rather

The multitudinous seas incarnadine

Making the green one red.”

“大洋里所有的水，能够洗净我手上的血迹吗？不，恐怕我这一手的血，倒要把一碧无垠的海水染成一片殷红呢 (Zhu 4)。”

Instead of translating the color “green” and “red” directly into “绿” and “红”, Zhu chooses words with strong Chinese emotional color. In traditional Chinese culture, the color “碧” represents innocent and clean, and when Macbeth commits the murder, he is not clean any more. Compared to a single word “红”, “殷红” is a color more like scarlet blood color. It is more appropriate to describe the bloody scene.

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