【古诗英译】《听弹琴》唐·刘长卿

海外逸士

聽彈琴  劉長卿
泠泠七弦上，靜听松風寒。古調雖自愛，今人多不彈。

Tinkling, tinkling, from the seven-stringed lyre;
I listen quietly as cold winds rustle pine trees.
Though I love the ancient tunes,
Yet most people nowadays don’t play.

自娱自乐

原帖由 薛湃 于 2009-12-11 11:51:00 发表
一点商榷：末句的no one（无人）似过于绝对，原文只是“（大）多（数人）不”。  

Ok, a very good point!

自娱自乐

lyre = a mini-harp?

a seven-stringed zither looks like this...

无心剑

谢谢海外前辈赐译。
“cold winds rustle pine trees”译得漂亮！

自娱自乐

With regard to your 'few people', I chew it over and over again, I feel it should mean the same thing as my version tried to convey.

few = not many / much, well, that is right, but fundamentally negative in connotation, which means 'NO', whereas a few = some, positive in connotation.

海外逸士

I used lyre just for a change. no idea what  it looks like.  are you sure that zither is actually the Chinese  gu qin?

few = almost none.
a few = some

自娱自乐

原帖由 海外逸士 于 2009-12-13 0:39:00 发表
I used lyre just for a change. no idea what  it looks like.  are you sure that zither is actually the Chinese  gu qin?

few = almost none.
a few = some

almost none 是有呢还是没有？where should we draw a line of demarcation?

有关 古琴，请你游览一下下面的网址

http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8F%A4%E7%90%B4

薛湃

正如逸士说的，few=almost none（几乎没有），也就是“有一两个”。这跟no one（一个也没有）不一样。自娱君说few是否定式的，这也对，不过其“否定”更多体现在语法格式上，例如：

You have few books here, DO you? (不是“DON'T you?”)

自娱自乐

几乎没有-答案是偏向否定的，也就是说‘即使是有一二个（也有可能没有）可以 ignore it (不计）’也就是说‘没有’

我这个‘理论’是向你的那个‘约等于’学习的，呵呵呵

薛湃

呵呵，few还“若有似无”，还有几分婉转；no one是“绝对没有”，太伤刘长卿的心了。