編輯：Merry
以下是英國翻譯家Julia Lovell的著作《鴉片戰(zhàn)爭》第二章 部分英中文對照
英文原著: 藍詩玲（Julia Lovell）
中文翻譯: 劉悅斌
《鴉片戰(zhàn)爭》共有19章，下面我們只截取第二章的一部分，并附上對應(yīng)的劉悅斌的中文翻譯：
Chapter Two
DAOGUANG’S DECISION
第二章 道光皇帝的決定
Once he took the throne in 1820, though, Daoguang’s nerve seems to have deserted him. Gaze at his official portrait – arrayed in the standard-issue bulky red turban, yellow brocade gown and beaded necklace of Qing emperorship – and he looks a different creature from his predecessors: the face pinched, angular, just a touch apprehensive, compared to his father’s expansive jowliness, or his grandfather’s patrician gravitas. He quickly abandoned displays of machismo for the laudable, but less charismatic virtues of parsimony and diligence. He draped his apartments with exhortations to ‘Be Respectful, Honest, Assiduous, Correcting of Errors’.1 On becoming emperor, he issued a cost-cutting ‘Treatise on Music, Women, Goods and Profit’, began going about in patched clothes and reduced his fun-loving father’s resident troupe of palace musicians and actors from some 650 to a more restrained 370-odd, while halving Jiaqing’s 400-strong army of cooks. As he aged, he left instructions that – contrary to custom – he modestly wanted no panegyric tablet erected at his tomb.
可是，到1820年繼承皇位后，他似乎勇武盡失。仔細看一看他的朝服像–穿戴著清代皇帝標準的紅色大皇冠、黃色錦緞長袍和朝珠–就會發(fā)現(xiàn)，看起來他是個與其祖父及父親很不相同的人：就臉型和面部表情看，他的父親下顎寬厚，他的祖父雍容華貴，而他則是五官緊湊，臉龐瘦削，顯得有些憂傷。他很快就不再展示其陽剛之氣，轉(zhuǎn)而展示值得贊賞、但卻缺乏魅力的節(jié)儉、勤勉的美德。他在自己的寢宮掛上“至敬、存誠、勤學(xué)、改過”以自警自誡。當(dāng)皇帝后，他發(fā)布消減花費的《御制聲色貨利諭》，開始穿打補丁的衣服，把他喜愛尋歡作樂的父親的宮廷戲班子從650人減少到370余人，把嘉慶帝400多人的廚師隊伍削減了一半，年老后，留下與慣例相反的遺命，即不要在他的陵墓前樹立歌功頌德的墓碑。
Daoguang’s two least successful attributes were probably indecision and a fondness for scapegoating others. A day or two after he had succeeded his father, he removed three key advisers for letting a mistake slip into his deceased father’s valedictory edict; a couple of days later, he reinstated two of them.2 He even changed his mind about a choice of final resting place. Having spent seven years building one tomb, the would-be underground palace sprang a leak; reading this as deeply inauspicious, Daoguang punished the officials responsible and abandoned the project in favour of a new site. By the time it was completed, after another four years, the ‘Hall of Eminent Favour’ – the only Qing imperial tomb built entirely of unpainted cedar-wood – spoke of the emperor’s love of frugality. (Compare the 2.27 million taels of silver – almost 3.5 million silver dollars – and 4,590 taels of gold spent by Cixi, the last empress, on her own tomb, in which even the bricks were carved and gilded.)3 This talent for vacillation – and for censuring and replacing any commander who did not achieve impossible victories – would serve him badly in his wars against opium and the British.
道光皇帝品性中最大的兩個缺陷大概是優(yōu)柔寡斷和諉過他人。他繼位剛一兩天，就以他父親的遺詔中有個錯誤而罷免了3個軍機大臣（遺詔由軍機大臣代擬。–譯者），幾天后又將其中兩人官復(fù)原職。他甚至對他給自己選擇的陵墓地點都改變主意，換過地方。他的陵墓在開工修建了7年后，將要安放他棺材的地宮出現(xiàn)了滲水，他認為這極為不祥，于是懲處了相關(guān)的官員，放棄了這個地點，另選了一處新址。之后又用了4年，建成了陵墓，其隆恩殿（清代帝后陵墓的大殿。–譯者）體現(xiàn)出了這位皇帝對節(jié)儉的偏愛：它是清代皇陵中唯一一座完全不飾彩繪的楠木陵墓。（可與慈禧太后的陵墓作個比較：慈禧太后在她的陵墓上花費了2.27億兩白銀，差不多合3500萬銀元和4590兩黃金，甚至陵墓用的磚都雕刻鍍金。）他這種猶豫不決的秉性，再加上對他認為作戰(zhàn)不力的軍隊指揮官的指責(zé)和替換，就決定了查禁鴉片和對英戰(zhàn)爭不大可能取得勝利。
During the 1830s, there was much to occupy the mind of any emperor: a steep decline in public order, finances and – most worrying of all – in the Qing military machine, whose weaknesses were being exploited by a broad range of domestic rebels (vagrants, dispossessed ethnic minorities, secret societies).
19世紀30年代，誰當(dāng)皇帝都會遇到一堆煩心事兒：社會秩序混亂，政府財政窘迫，特別令人揪心的是清朝的軍隊，此伏彼起的內(nèi)亂（無業(yè)游民、少數(shù)民族、秘密會社）充分暴露了它的無能。
After recovering from the horrors of the seventeenth century – its wars, plagues and crop failures – the Chinese population under the remarkable Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong at least doubled between 1650 and 1800, to reach some 300 million. New World silver flowed through the empire, thanks in part to a healthy export trade, the proliferation of an empire-wide network of markets and the emancipation of previously servile labourers. But size, diversity and silver turned against the Qing at the end of its eighteenth-century heyday. At this point, the empire was approaching its limits, as demographic explosion led to fierce competition for work and resources, ecological degradation, price rises, bureaucratic chaos and corruption. Critically, things also began to go wrong in the Qing military. By the second half of the eighteenth century, the Qing’s earlier capacity for dominating its borders was looking more questionable. Three invasions of Burma between 1766 and 1769 were defeated or stalemated, as Qing cavalry became bogged down along the humid south-western frontier; an occupation of Vietnam in 1788 was chased out within a month, with the loss of 4,000 troops. The root cause of decline was the same as in other spheres of government: over-extension, and failure of funds.
從17世紀戰(zhàn)亂、瘟疫、莊稼歉收的恐慌中恢復(fù)過來后，從1650年到1800年，在康雍乾盛世時代，中國的人口至少翻了一番，達到大約3億。新大陸的白銀大量流入中華帝國，部分原因是由于中國出口貿(mào)易量的巨大，遍布全國的市場網(wǎng)絡(luò)的迅速形成，和勞役的廢除。到18世紀末，中國達到其全盛期，但是，國土面積的廣袤、民族的眾多和白銀都對清王朝構(gòu)成挑戰(zhàn)。到這時，中華帝國已經(jīng)發(fā)展到其極限，因為人口的爆炸導(dǎo)致了對工作機會和資源的激烈競爭，生態(tài)環(huán)境惡化，物價飛漲，吏治紊亂敗壞。更嚴重的是，清朝的軍隊開始走下坡路。到18世紀后半葉，清朝前期控制邊疆的能力越來越成問題。1766-1769年間對緬甸的三次征討，或被打敗，或沒有取得進展，因為清朝騎兵在潮濕的西南邊疆山林中難有用武之地。1788年對越南的占領(lǐng)則不到一個月就被趕了出來，還損失了4000人馬。清朝衰敗的根本原因和世界上其他國家衰敗的原因是一樣的，即過度的擴張和財政的困窘。
