听新闻说有人要拍卖钱家的一批书信，102岁的杨老太太很生气。从泄漏的消息里，看到钱先生说红楼梦的英译本：“因思及Hawkes近以其新出译本第三册相赠，乃细读之，文笔远胜杨氏夫妇，然而此老实话亦不能公开说，可笑可叹。”于我心有戚戚焉——我偶然见过H的译本，与杨译略作比较，就喜欢H的了，因为更像是读英语。（由此生出一个可怕的毛病：不再读杨译的中国古典作品了。）

《红楼梦》的英译，迄今似乎也只有这两个全本。杨译是要把中国文化引介给世界，所以很忠实于原文的形象。霍译的好处，“在于能传原书之神，读来往往不使读者不觉得它是翻译作品。”（周珏良语）。

杨译的老实，从最简单的名词就能看到，如他将“怡红院”和“怡红公子”译为happy red court和happy red prince。而霍译为The house of green delights和green boy。霍译处处都关心他的读者的感受。我们说米和粥，他译成flour和bread；我们的锅里和碗里的，他译成dish和saucepan，把中餐平移变换为西餐。

以前看过一本研究红楼梦翻译的书，从多方面对比了两个译本，从回目的翻译上，就感觉杨译“准确”而有时不知所云，霍译自然，有时却很啰嗦（也不对仗了）。霍译在形容词的选择上，也比杨译更能贴近洋读者的感受。

下面选一段很有中国味儿的话，看两家人是如何翻译的：

只见正门五间，上面桶瓦泥鳅脊，那门栏窗皆是细雕新鲜花样，并无朱粉涂饰。一色水磨群墙，下面白石台矶，凿成西番草花样。左右一望，皆雪白粉墙。下面虎皮石随势砌去，果然不落富丽俗套，自是欢喜。（第17回“大观园试才题对额，荣国府归省庆元宵”）

杨译：

… a building infive sections with an arched roof of semi-circular tiles. The lintels andlattices, finely carved with ingenious designs, were neither painted norgilded; the walls were of polished bricks of a uniform colour, and the whitemarble steps were carved with passion-flowers. The garden’s spotlesswhitewashed wall stretching to left and right had, at its base, a mosaic ofstriped “tiger-skin” stones. The absence of vulgar ostentation pleased him.

（arched roof of semi-circular有点儿大，令人想起穹隆屋顶，不如hump-backedroof of half-cylinder更能接近“桶瓦泥鳅脊”。）

Hawkes译：

It was a five-framegate-building with a hump-backed roof of half-cylinder tiles. The woodenlattice-work of the doors and windows was finely carved and ingeniouslypatterned. The whole gatehouse was quite unadorned by colour or gild­ing, yetall was of the most exquisite workmanship. Its walls stood on a terrace ofwhite marble carved with a pattern of passion-flowers in relief, and thegarden’s whitewashed circumference wall to left and right of it had a footingmade of black-and-white striped stone blocks arranged so that the stripesformed a simple pattern. Jia Zheng found the unosten­tatious simplicity of thisentrance greatly to his liking …

这一段话，是两家都译得不太好的，但很能体现各家本色。特别是，霍译比杨译长了许多，这一段的比例大概也代表了全文的比例。

用翻译界的话来说，杨译是“异化”而霍译是“归化”。公平地说，洋人应该读杨译本，而土人学英语的，最好读霍译本。