梁实秋《男人》 -经典散文英译-中英双语赏析

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◎　梁实秋　Liang Shiqiu

男人

◎　梁实秋

男人令人首先感到的印象是脏①！当然，男人当中亦不乏刷洗干净洁身自好的②，甚至还有油头粉面衣冠楚楚的③，但大体讲来，男人消耗肥皂和水的数量要比较少些。某一男校，对于学生洗澡是强迫的，入浴签名，每周计核，对于不曾入浴的初步惩罚是宣布姓名，最后的断然处置是定期强迫入浴，并派员监视，然而日久玩生，签名簿中尚不无浮冒情事。有些男人，西装裤尽管挺直，他的耳后脖根，土壤肥沃，常常宜于种麦！袜子手绢不知随时洗涤，常常日积月累，到处塞藏，等到无可使用时，再从那一堆污垢存货当中拣选比较干净的去应急。有些男人的手绢，拿出来硬像是土灰面制的百果糕，黑糊糊粘成一团，而且内容丰富。男人的一双脚，多半好像是天然的具有泡菜霉干菜再加糖蒜的味道，所谓“濯足万里流”是有道理的，小小的一盆水确是无济于事，然而多少男人却连这一盆水都吝而不用，怕伤元气。两脚既然如此之脏，偏偏有些“逐臭之夫”喜于脚上藏垢纳污之处往复挖掘，然后嗅其手指，引以为乐！多少男人洗脸都是专洗本部，边疆一概不理，洗脸完毕，手背可以不湿，有的男人是在结婚后才开始刷牙。“扪虱而谈④”的是男人。男人的脏大概是由于懒。

对了！男人懒。他可以懒洋洋坐在旋椅上，五官四肢，连同他的脑筋（假如有），一概停止活动，像呆鸟一般：“不闻夫博弈者乎……⑤”那段话是专对男人说的。他若是上街买东西⑥，很少时候能令他的妻子满意，他总是不肯多问几家⑦，怕跑腿，怕费话，怕讲价钱。什么事他都嫌麻烦，除了指使别人替他做的事之外，他像残废人一样，对于什么事都愿坐享其成，而名之曰“室家之乐”。

紧毗连着“懒”的是“馋”。男人大概有好胃口的居多。他的嘴，用在吃的方面的时候多，他吃饭时总要在菜碟里发现至少一英寸见方半英寸厚的肉，才能算是没有吃素。几天不见肉，他就喊“嘴里要淡出鸟儿来！”⑧有一个人半年没有吃鸡，看见了鸡毛帚就流涎三尺。一餐盛馔之后，他的人生观都能改变，对于什么都乐观起来。一个男人在吃一顿好饭的时候，他脸上的表情硬是在感谢上天待人不薄：他饭后衔着一根牙签，红光满面，硬是觉得可以骄人。主中馈的是女人，修食谱的是男人。⑨

男人多半自私。他的人生观中有一基本认识，即宇宙一切均是为了他的舒适而安排下来的。除了在做事赚钱的时候不得不忍气吞声地向人奴膝婢颜外，他总是要做出一副老爷相。他的家便是他的国度，他在家里称王。他除了为赚钱而吃苦努力外，他是一个“伊比鸠派⑩，”他要享受。他高兴的时候，孩子可以骑在他的颈上，他引颈受骑，他可以像狗似的满地爬；他不高兴时，他看着谁都不顺眼，在外面受了闷气，回到家里来加倍地发作。他不知道女人的苦处。女人对于他的殷勤委曲，在他看来，就如同犬守户、鸡司晨一样的稀松平常，都是自然现象。他说他爱女人，其实他不是爱，是享受女人。他不问他给了别人多少，但是他要在别人身上尽量榨取。他觉得他对女人最大的恩惠，便是把赚来的钱全部或一部拿回家来，但是当他把一卷卷的钞票从衣袋里掏出来的时候，他的脸上的表情是骄傲的成分多，亲爱的成分少，好像是在说：“看我！你行么！我这样待你，你多幸运！”他若是感觉到这家不复是他的乐园，他便有多样的借口不回到家里来。他到处云游，他另辟乐园。他有聚餐会，他有酒会，他有桥会，他有书会画会棋会，他有夜会，最不济的还有个茶馆。他的享乐的方法太多。假如轮回之说不假，下世侥幸依然投胎为人，很少男人情愿下世做女人的。他总觉得这一世生为男身，而享受未足，下一世要继续努力⑪。

“群居终日，言不及义⑫”，原是人的通病，但是言谈的内容，却男女有别。女人谈的往往是“我们家的小妹又病了！”“你们家每月开销多少？⑬”之类。男人的是另一套，普通的方式，男人的谈话，最后不谈到女人身上便不会散场⑭。这一个题目对男人最有兴味。如果有一个桃色案他们唯恐其和解得太快。他们好议论人家的阴私，好批评别人的妻子的性格相貌。“长舌男”是到处有的，不知为什么这名词尚不甚流行。

On Men

◎ Liang Shiqiu

What strikes us first of all in men is their uncleanliness. There are of course no lack of men who always make a point of keeping themselves spick-and-span. And some of them even make up heavily and dress respectably. But, generally speaking, men consume a smaller quantity of soap and water than women. A certain boys’ school made it compulsory for its students to take a bath regularly. Every student had to sign his name before taking a bath so that the school authorities could conduct a weekly checkup. Those who violated the regulation for the first time would have their names published. The drastic measure for those who repeated the offence was to force them to take a bath regularly under surveillance. Nevertheless, abuses crept in with time. Forgery was often discovered among the signatures. Some men, although they wear smooth-ironed Western-style pants, leave much dirt behind their ears and around their necks — so much that it is good enough for growing wheat! Their unwashed socks and handkerchiefs accumulate and are left here and there in unseen corners. When no more clean ones are available, some of the less dirty ones are picked out from the filthy stock to meet an urgent need. Men’s handkerchiefs, curled up into blackened balls, look like fruit cakes made of wholemeal flour and have a very rich content of their own. Men’s feet, for the most part, seem to have a distinctive smell of their own, like that of pickles, dried vegetables and sweetened garlic all mixed together. There is some truth in the saying, “The running water of a long river is good for washing one’s feet.” Therefore, it goes without saying that a small basin of water will hardly suffice for the same purpose. But lots of men begrudge using even a mere basin of water to wash their feet — perhaps for fear of sapping their vitality and spirit! Dirty as their feet are, some men are so eccentric as to indulge in passing their fingers repeatedly among their stinking toes and then smelling their fingers with gusto. Some men, when they wash up, they concentrate only on the face proper, without touching the rest of the head and without wetting the back of the hand. Some do not brush their teeth until after they get married. The addiction to “chatting while cracking body lice with fingernails” is unique to men only. Probably, men’s uncleanliness is due to their laziness.

Indeed, men are lazy. You will find them lolling in a revolving chair, dumb like a wooden chicken, their five sense organs, their four limbs as well as their brain (if any) all at a complete standstill. What Confucius says about those who eat their fill all day without doing any work obviously refers to men exclusively. When men go shopping, their wives are seldom satisfied with their purchases because they never bother to shop around, never bother to do more walking and talking, never bother to bargain over prices. They hate to be bothered about anything except that which is to be done on their behalf by others. Like disabled persons, they will sit idle to enjoy the fruits of others’ labour. And they call all that “domestic bliss”!

Closely linked to men’s laziness is their gluttony. Men mostly have a good appetite. Their mouth is most of the time busy eating. They will brand their meal as a vegetarian one unless they can spot in the dishes a piece of meat at least one inch square and half an inch thick. They will complain like hell after a couple of meatless days. Men who have gone half a year without eating chicken will start drooling copiously at the sight of even a feather duster. A sumptuous dinner can change their outlook on life and make them sanguine about everything. During a good meal, genuine thankfulness to Heaven for its overflowing bounty will be written all over their faces. After the meal, sporting a toothpick between their teeth, they will be glowing with smug satisfaction. Women do the cooking, men are gourmets.

Men are mostly self-centered. It is the basic tenet of their philosophy of life that all universe should function to ensure their personal comfort. They always act like overlords except when, in working to earn money, they need to behave submissively and servilely towards others. They regard their homes as kingdoms under their rule. They are Epicureans obsessed with pleasure-seeking except when they have to toil strenuously for money. When they are in a cheerful mood, they can crawl about on all fours like dogs with their kids riding on their craned necks. When they are in a bad mood, they seem to find everybody at home an eyesore. When they feel they have been wronged by somebody, they will come home to take it out all on their own folks. They don’t know how hard their wives suffer. They take their wives’ tender care and submissiveness for granted and regard them as something very commonplace, like dogs guarding their homes and cocks crowing to herald the break of day. Instead of truly loving their wives as they claim, they simply make use of them. They try to squeeze as much as possible out of others without ever stopping to think how much they themselves have given. They think it is their greatest favour to their wives to bring back all or part of the money they have earned. But, when they produce from their pockets rolls upon rolls of banknotes, their faces reveal more pride than love, as if saying, “Look at me! Can you be as smart as I am? I’m treating you so well. How lucky you are!” When they think their homes are no longer their paradises, they invent many excuses for staying away. They will go here and there to seek new paradises: dinner parties, cocktail parties, painting and calligraphy exhibitions, chess games or night clubs. Failing all of them, they can at least find a tea house to while away their time. They have many ways to enjoy themselves. If transmigration were true so that they could be lucky enough to be reincarnated as humans, few of them would choose to be women in their next life. They would invariably feel they had not enjoyed enough as males in this life and therefore had to make up for it after they were reborn.

It is a common failing among human beings to engage in idle gossip. But men’s gossip is generally different from that of women in content. The topics of women’s chitchat are often like these, “Our little daughter is ill again!”, “What are your family expenses like?”. Men, however, are different in their own way. They, as a rule, will never call it a day until their conversation has covered something about women. Women constitute the most intriguing topic of men’s conversation. When a legal case involving a sex scandal crops up, they desire to see it go on indefinitely. They take pleasure in gossiping about other people’s private life and commenting on the character and appearance of other people’s wives. Gossipy men, known as “long-tongued men”, are found everywhere although the epithet is somehow none too popular yet.

梁实秋（1902—1987），北京人，原籍浙江杭县，我国著名现代作家、教育家、翻译家，一生致力于英国文学研究。他的主要译著是《莎士比亚全集》。他在《男人》一文中从自己个人的观察角度出发，大胆描绘男人的一些典型特点，文字幽默诙谐，俏皮夸张，极尽戏谑之能事。所谈男人的一些毛病当然不能一概而论，但男女有别，这些毛病大多非女人所共有。

注释

①“男人令人首先感到的印象是脏”译为What strikes us first of all in men is their uncleanliness，其中to strike的意思是“给……以印象”（to give a particular impression）。因此，此句也可译为The first impression that men give us is their uncleanliness。又，译文用反面词uncleanliness（不爱清洁）表达“脏”（filthiness），意思更为确切。

②“刷洗干净洁身自好”意即“很重视整洁”，故译为make a point of keeping themselves spick-and-span，其中to make a point of是成语，作“极重视”、“极注意”等解。

③“油头粉面衣冠楚楚”意即“讲究梳妆打扮穿着体面”，故译为make up heavily and dress respectably，其中to make up是成语，作“梳妆打扮”、“涂脂抹粉”解。

④“扪虱而谈”或“扪虱而言”源于古书，译为The addiction to “chatting while cracking body lice with fingernails”，其中addiction to（癖好）为添加的成分，原文虽无其词而有其意。

⑤“不闻夫博弈者乎……”指孔子讲的一段话：“饱食终日，无所用心，难矣哉，不有博弈者乎，为之，犹贤乎已。”现结合上下文，仅译头两句即可：those who eat their fill all day without doing any work。

⑥“他若是上街买东西”译为When men go shopping，比When they go out to do some shopping简洁、地道。

⑦“他总是不肯多问几家”译为they never bother to shop around，其中to shop around是成语，作“货比三家”、“逐店选购”解。如译为they never bother to call at different shops或they never bother to compare the prices or quality at different shops，文字都欠简洁、地道。

⑧“几天不见肉，他就喊‘嘴里要淡出鸟儿来！’”的后半部分不宜直译，现按“几天不吃肉，他就怨天怨地”译为They will complain like hell after a couple of meatless days或A couple of meatless days will make them exceedingly unhappy。

⑨“主中馈的是女人，修食谱的是男人。”中的“中馈”原指“酒食”或“饮食”，现引申为“炊事”或“烹调”；“修食谱”本作“撰写烹调书”解，现引申为“讲究饭食的人”或“美食家”。全句的意思是“女人做饭，男人吃饭。”全句译为Women do the cooking, men are gourmets。

⑩“伊比鸠派”译自英语Epicurean，本指希腊哲学家伊壁鸠鲁（Epicurus）的信徒，引申为“享乐主义者”。

⑪“下一世要继续努力”意即“必须在下一世寻找弥补”，故译为had to make up for it after they were reborn。

⑫“群居终日，言不及义”也是孔子说的话，直译欠利落，且无必要，现按“闲聊天”的意思译为idle gossip。

⑬“你们家每月开销多少？”译为What are your family expenses like?，如逐字直译为How much does your family pay for its monthly expenditure? 就不太像口语。

⑭“最后不谈到女人身上便不会散场”意即“不谈女人决不罢休”，现译为They, as a rule, will never call it a day until their conversation has covered something about women，其中to call it a day为成语，作“收工”或“罢休”解。

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