《咏技艺》:晚清公使曾纪泽翻译的一首英文诗尹德翔

晚清驻英公使曾纪泽翻译的一首英文诗《咏技艺》，刊载于1887年1月出版的《英国皇家亚洲学会会刊》，是清代外国诗翻译的一份别具价值的史料。曾纪泽翻译此诗，缘于他对英诗的长期爱好，又与他和作者傅澧兰（Freeland）的个人交往密切相关。比较而言，在近代较早出现的译诗中，《咏技艺》的水平是最佳的，其尝试本身，在中国诗歌翻译史上，值得纪念。除翻译本身可圈可点，《咏技艺》还有几个明确的优点:（1）时代较早；（2）由一个懂英语的中国人独立完成，是符合现代意义的真正的翻译；（3）诗歌翻译的自觉。《咏技艺》的翻译，证明丁韪良所说曾纪泽英文水平差、“读、写一直都有困难”的评论是无根的。

Yong Ji Yi or Art the Chinese Translation of an English Poem by Zeng Jize the Late Qing Envoy to the Great Britain YIN De-xiang

Yong Ji Yi, or the Chinese version of the English poem Art, was composed by Zeng Jize (Marquis Tseng) the Late Qing envoy to the Great Britain and was published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland in Jan., 1887. As a historical document of Chinese translation of foreign poetry in the Qing period, it is very special. Zeng’s translation is motivated both by his passion for poetry in English and his friendship with the author H. W. Freeland. Of all the translated poems in early modern Chinese history, Yong Ji Yi claims superiority in quality and deserves specific attention. Besides the refined Chinese rendering of the text, it has some other merits: 1. It was published in an early period. 2. It was completed independently by a Chinese who knew English and it was done in the modern sense of translation. 3. It shows the self-awareness of poetic translation. The existence of Yong Ji Yi disproves W. A. P Martin ’s statement that Zeng’s English level was low and that “he always read and wrote with difficulty”