2026年7月15日中译英挑战  

常德道中

王翼奇

三湘四水久神游，

此日频看渡碧流。

一片骚人迁客地，

十分沅芷澧兰愁。

诗吟渔父情何极，

路入桃源境渐幽。

无限中年哀乐意，

正宜来对武陵秋。

 吕文澎  译 

By WANG Yiqi

Tr. LYU Wenpeng

Through Hunan's rivers long my fancies play;

I watch people cross green waters today.

This land once bred both bards and banished souls,

With grief from orchids by your silent shoals.

I chant The Fisherman — my heart's no bound;

The road leads to Peach Blossom Spring profound.

My midlife's cup holds endless weal and woe—

How fitting to face Wuling's autumn glow!

  舒恩江 译  

On the Way to Changde

By Wang Yiqi

Tr. Shu Enjiang

Through Hunan's streams and lakes my soul had long been led;

Now crossing their green waves, I gaze and pause instead.

This land where banished poets left their sighs of old—

Where orchids bloom with sorrows that can scarce be told.

I chant the Fisherman's song—how deep its feeling flows!

The road leads to Peach Blossom Spring, whose quiet grows.

Boundless the joys and griefs that fill my middle years—

How well they face Wuling's autumn, tinged with tears.

Notes

1. Hunan's rivers, or Three Xiangs and Four Rivers（三湘四水）, a poetic name for Hunan Province ("Xiang" for short), evoking its major river systems and affectionately used by locals.

2. Orchids here allude to "angelicas in Yuan and orchids in Li," from the Nine Songs (Jiuge) in Odes and Elegies by Qu Yuan (c. 340–278 BCE). Zhao Yanchun translates the line as: "Angelicas in Yuan or orchids in Li; I'm burning for you, o it worries me." It describes fragrant herbs growing along the Yuan and Li rivers. In the poem, the Lady of Xiang, goddess of the Xiang River, longs for her divine lover, the Lord of Xiang, but cannot find him and offers these herbs as tokens of her deep yearning. The phrase later came to signify either a person of noble character, or profound longing and tender affection.

3. The Fisherman: A chapter in Odes and Elegies by Qu Yuan (c. 340–278 BCE). In the form of a dialogue between the poet and a fisherman, it explores an enduring question: how should one conduct oneself in times of adversity and moral distress?

4. Peach Blossom Spring: The idyllic utopia discovered by a fisherman in Tao Yuanming's (c. 365–427) prose piece The Peach Blossom Spring. It later became a byword for a secluded haven of peace, or an illusory paradise.

5. Wuling: An ancient prefecture (roughly present-day Changde, Hunan Province).

  作者简介  

王翼奇（1942—2025），字羽之，原名萧佛寿，出生于福建省厦门市。中国当代古典文学家、骈文及诗词家。曾任浙江古籍出版社副总编辑、浙江省文史研究馆馆员等职。

WANG Yiqi (1942–2025), styled Yuzhi (literally “feathers of it”), originally named Xiao Foshou, was born in Xiamen, Fujian Province.

He was a contemporary Chinese classical literary scholar, and a writer of parallel prose and poetry. He served as Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Zhejiang Ancient Books Publishing House and a staff member of Zhejiang Research Institute  Culture and History, among other positions.（吕文澎 译）