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Finn:Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English. I'm Finn.
大家好，欢迎收听英语六分钟。我是菲恩。
Neil:And I'm Neil. Hello. Today we are talking about Shakespeare.
我是尼尔。大家好。我们今天要讨论的是莎士比亚。
Finn:Oh yes… to be or not to be, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler...
哦，是的……生存还是毁灭，这是一个值得考虑的问题；哪一种选择更为高贵……
Neil:Yeah. OK, thank you. Thank you very much, Finn. But what does that famous Shakespeare line actually mean, Finn?
是的。好了，谢谢你，非常感谢，菲恩。但是莎士比亚那句著名的诗句到底是什么意思，菲恩？
Finn:Yeah, well… it's quite hard to explain actually. The English in Shakespeare's work is quite difficult.
啊……它解释起来实际上很困难。莎士比亚作品中用的英语很难懂。
Neil:Well, a Shakespeare festival in Oregon in the United States wants to change all of that. They want to pay writers – they want to commission - what they call 'translations' of Shakespeare's plays. Now we usually use the word translation of course to talk about changing words and sentences from one language to another. But these writers have been commissioned to translate Shakespearean English into plain English.
美国俄勒冈州的莎士比亚戏剧节就想改变这一情况。他们付钱请人来翻译莎士比亚的戏剧。我们经常用“翻译”一词来表示把一种语言转变为另一种语言。但是被请来的这些人的任务是把莎士比亚风格的英语翻译为通俗易懂的英语。
Finn:So Shakespeare in easy, plain English。You know, I'm not sure I really like that idea.
那么就是用简单、通俗的英语来演绎莎士比亚的作品。我可能不会太喜欢这种做法。
Neil:Well, you're not the only one, Finn. We will talk about that in a moment, but first, as usual, we have our quiz question and it's about Shakespeare and translation. What was the first language that Shakespeare's plays were translated into? Was it: a)French b)German or c)Portuguese.What do you think?
不只是你不喜欢，菲恩。我们稍后再谈这个，首先，我们照例要出一个测试题，测试题是关于莎士比亚与翻译的。莎士比亚的戏剧最早被翻译成了哪种语言？a)法语 b)德语 c)西班牙语。你认为是哪一种？
Finn:You know, I really have no idea on this one. I'm going to say b) German.
这个问题我还真不知道，我猜是 b)德语。
Neil:We'll see if you're right at the end of the programme. But now we're going to hear from two Shakespeare experts speaking to the BBC. First, Andrew Dickinson. He is the author of 'Worlds Elsewhere: Journeys Around Shakespeare's Globe'.
我们在节目最后时再看你是否猜对了。现在让我们听一听两位研究莎士比亚的专家在接受BBC采访时的说法。首先是安德鲁·迪金森。他是《另一处世界：探索有关莎士比亚的世界》一书的作者。
Finn:In his travels around the world - around the globe – did he find many translations of Shakespeare?
他在环游世界时有没有找到莎士比亚作品的很多译本呢？
Someone’s translated Hamlet into Klingon. You know, he exists in all of these different places and all of these different forms and I suppose that what really struck me while working on my book and travelling around the world talking to people about Shakespeare is that he is so multifarious - he exists in all of these places. It feels sometimes that we in the English-speaking world are only just catching up with this.
有人把《哈姆雷特》译成了克林贡语。你知道吗，莎士比亚的作品的不同版本散布在世界的各个角落。在我为写新书周游世界与人探讨莎士比亚时，他作品译本的种类之多让我感到吃惊，而且他的作品遍布世界各地。有时感觉生活在英语世界的我们对莎士比亚的了解也仅仅是九牛一毛。
Finn:Shakespeare expert Andrew Dickinson, who has travelled the world for his new book and knows about many translations, even one from out of this world!
研究莎士比亚的专家安德鲁·迪金森为写他的新书环游世界，并了解到许多莎士比亚的译作，甚至还有并非我们世界的语言的版本！
Neil:Yes, he says someone has even translated Hamlet into Klingon. Now that's the language spoken by aliens in Star Trek, which is of course a science fiction TV series, it's not a real language.
是的，他说有人甚至将《哈姆雷特》译成了克林贡语。那是《星际迷航》里外星人的语言，《星际迷航》是一部科幻影片，所以克林贡语也并非真的是一种语言。
Finn:Let's get back to the real world, Neil. Andrew Dickinson says that what really impressed him – what really struck him - while working on his new book and travelling around the world talking about Shakespeare is that Shakespeare is so multifarious. Multifarious - that's quite a difficult word.
让我们回到现实世界吧，尼尔。安德鲁·迪金森 说在他为写新书环游世界，与人探讨莎士比亚时，令他吃惊的是莎士比亚的作品竟然如此多种多样。Multifarious是很有难度的单词。
Neil:Yes, it is. Well in plain English it means that there are many different types. There are many different translations, many different kinds of Shakespeare.
是的。它通俗的含义就是种类很多。有许多不同版本的翻译，就能解读出不同类型的莎士比亚。
Finn:He's multifarious.
他是多面的。
Neil:Finn! We're using plain English in this programme, like the people in Oregon who want to translate Shakespeare into plain English. That will make his plays easier to understand.
菲恩！我们在这个节目中要用通俗的英语，就像俄勒冈州的人们想用通俗英语来翻译莎士比亚的作品一样。那样他的戏剧就更容易懂了。
Finn:And that's a good thing. But there has also been strong criticism about this from academics who study Shakespeare as well as from people on social media – on Facebook and Twitter. They think it's a bad idea.
这是好事。但是这却受到了研究莎士比亚的学者和社交媒体，比如脸书和推特，上人们的强烈谴责。
Neil:Our next Shakespeare expert is Greg Doran. He is the Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He's done productions outside Britain. Where did he do a production of the Shakespeare play, Merchant of Venice? Here he is talking about the difficulty of translation.
我们采访的下一位莎士比亚专家是格雷格?多兰。他是皇家莎士比亚剧团的艺术总监。他曾在国外执导演出。他在哪里指导莎士比亚的《威尼斯商人》的呢？他跟我们讨论了翻译莎士比亚作品时遇到的困难。
I think the difficulty with a translation is that it simply translates the sense and there's a lot more going on in the language of Shakespeare's plays. I remember once doing a production of Merchant of Venice in Japan and I was asked – we were having a new translation done - and I was asked if I wanted the translation for meaning, for pace or for poetry and that's the difficulty. You've got to find all three somehow together.
我认为翻译的难度在于我们只能翻译出一种感觉，但实际上莎士比亚作品的语言中还蕴含着很多东西。我记得有一次在日本执导《威尼斯商人》，我们在准备一个新的译本，有人问我我想要的译本要侧重哪个方面——意思、节奏还是诗意——这很让我为难。我们必须要找到一种三者兼顾的译法。
Finn:Greg Doran, Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He was doing a Shakespeare production in Japan. He says that the difficulty with translation is that it only translates the sense – it is only the general meaning. But he says that there's more than that.
皇家莎士比亚剧团的艺术总监格雷格?多兰曾在日本执导莎士比亚作品的演出。他说到翻译的难度在于只能翻译一种感觉，也就是作品的大意。但是作品的意义远不止这些。
Neil:They were having a translation done and he was asked if he wanted the translation for meaning or for pace – that’s about the speed of the lines in the play - or was the poetry of the words important。
在准备译本时他被问到是想要更侧重于哪一方面的翻译，是意义、节奏——戏剧中台词的语速、还是语言的诗意。
Finn:And his answer was that you've got to find all three somehow together. It is not just one thing.
他的答案是要三者兼顾的翻译。它不应该仅仅考虑一个方面。
Neil:He says that there is a lot going on – there is a lot happening - in the language of Shakespeare's plays.
他说莎士比亚作品的语言中蕴含着很多东西。
Finn:And so a simple translation of the words into plain English isn't really… Shakespeare. And I think it's time to answer our quiz question.
所以，简单地把单词翻译成通俗的英语就不像是莎士比亚的作品了。我想现在是回答测试题目的时间了。
Neil:Yes, if you remember, it's about translations of Shakespeare. What was the first language that Shakespeare's plays were translated into? Was it:a)French b)German c)Portuguese
是的，不知你是否记得，我们的题目是和莎士比亚作品的翻译相关的。莎士比亚的戏剧最早被翻译成了哪种语言？a)法语 b)德语 c)葡萄牙语。
Finn:I said b) German, which I'll admit was a guess.
我选择的是b)德语，我承认自己是猜的。
Neil:And that is the right answer.
你的回答是正确的。
Finn:Fantastic!
太棒了！
Neil:Apparently Shakespeare's plays were translated into German as early as the first decade of the 17th Century. And that’s all for now. Please do join us again for 6 Minute English.
众所周知莎士比亚的戏剧早在17世纪开始的十年里就有了德语的译本。那么我们的节目就到这里了。请下次继续收听英语六分钟。
Finn:To be or not be...
生存还是毁灭……
Neil:Yes, OK. Thanks, Finn.
好吧，谢谢，菲恩。
Both:Bye.
再见。