《古都的秋》|原作 朱自清|英译 徐英才|诵读 李莉（中文诵读）
https://www.ximalaya.com/renwen/9925600/226252499
《古都的秋》|原作 朱自清|英译 徐英才|诵读 李莉（英文诵读）
https://www.ximalaya.com/renwen/9925600/227643843
摘自徐英才的《英译中国经典散文选》
故都的秋
郁达夫
秋天，无论在什么地方的秋天，总是好的；可是啊，北国的秋，却特别地来得清，来得静，来得悲凉。我的不远千里，要从杭州赶上青岛，更要从青岛赶上北平来的理由，也不过想饱尝一尝这“秋”，这故都的秋味。
江南，秋当然也是有的；但草木雕得慢，空气来得润，天的颜色显得淡，并且又时常多雨而少风；一个人夹在苏州上海杭州，或厦门香港广州的市民中间，浑浑沌沌地过去，只能感到一点点清凉，秋的味，秋的色，秋的意境与姿态，总看不饱，尝不透，赏玩不到十足。秋并不是名花，也并不是美酒，那一种半开， 半醉的状态，在领略秋的过程上，是不合适的。
不逢北国之秋，已将近十余年了。在南方每年到了秋天，总要想起陶然亭的芦花，钓鱼台的柳影，西山的虫唱，玉泉的夜月，潭柘寺的钟声。在北平即使不出门去罢，就是在皇城人海之中，租人家一椽破屋来住着，早晨起来，泡一碗浓茶、向院子一坐，你也能看得到很高很高的碧绿的天色，听得到青天下驯鸽的飞声。从槐树叶底，朝东细数着一丝一丝漏下来的日光，或在破壁腰中，静对着象喇叭似的牵牛花（朝荣）的蓝朵，自然而然地也能够感觉到十分的秋意。说到了牵牛花，我以为以蓝色或白色者为佳，紫黑色次之，淡红色最下。最好，还要在牵牛花底，教长着几根疏疏落落的尖细且长的秋草，使作陪衬。
北国的槐树，也是一种能使人联想起秋来的点缀。象花而又不是花的那一种落蕊，早晨起来，会铺得满地。脚踏上去，声音也没有，气味也没有，只能感出一点点极微细极柔软的触觉。扫街的在树影下一阵扫后，灰土上留下来的一条条扫帚的丝纹，看起来既觉得细腻，又觉得清闲，潜意识下并且还觉得有点儿落寞，古人所说的梧桐一叶而天下知秋的遥想，大约也就在这些深沈的地方。
秋蝉的衰弱的残声，更是北国的特产；因为北平处处全长着树，屋子又低，所以无论在什么地方，都听得见它们的啼唱。在南方是非要上郊外或山上去才听得到的。这秋蝉的嘶叫，在北平可和蟋蟀耗子一样，简直象是家家户户都养在家里的家虫。
还有秋雨哩，北方的秋雨，也似乎比南方的下得奇，下得有味，下得更象样。
在灰沈沈的天底下，忽而来一阵凉风，便息列索落地下起雨来了。一层雨过，云渐渐地卷向了西去，天又青了，太阳又露出脸来了；著着很厚的青布单衣或夹袄曲都市闲人，咬着烟管，在雨后的斜桥影里，上桥头树底下去一立，遇见熟人，便会用了缓慢悠闲的声调，微叹着互答着的说：
“唉，天可真凉了─—”（这了字念得很高，拖得很长。）
“可不是么？一层秋雨一层凉了！”
北方人念阵字，总老象是层字，平平仄仄起来，这念错的歧韵，倒来得正好11。
北方的果树，到秋来，也是一种奇景。第一是枣子树；屋角，墙头，茅房边上12，灶房门口，它都会一株株地长大起来。象橄榄又象鸽蛋似的这枣子颗儿，在小椭圆形的细叶中间，显出淡绿微黄的颜色的时候，正是秋的全盛时期；等枣树叶落，枣子红完，西北风就要起来了，北方便是尘沙灰土的世界，只有这枣子、柿子、葡萄，成熟到八九分的七八月之交，是北国的清秋的佳日，是一年之中最好也没有的黄金季节。
有些批评家说，中国的文人学士，尤其是诗人，都带着很浓厚的颓废色彩，所以中国的诗文里，颂赞秋的文字特别的多。但外国的诗人，又何尝不然？ 我虽则外国诗文念得不多，也不想开出账来，做一篇秋的诗歌散文钞，但你若去翻一翻英德法意等诗人的集子，或各国的诗文的An-thology来，总能够看到许多关于秋的歌颂与悲啼。
各著名的大诗人的长篇田园诗或四季诗里，也总以关于秋的部分写得最出色而最有味。足见有感觉的动物，有情趣的人类，对于秋，总是一样的能特别引起深沈，幽远，严厉，萧索的感触来的。不单是诗人，就是被关闭在牢狱里的囚犯，到了秋天，我想也一定会感到一种不能自己的深情；秋之于人，何尝有国别，更何尝有人种阶级的区别呢？不过在中国，文字里有一个“秋士”的成语，读本里又有着很普遍的欧阳子的《秋声》与苏东坡的《赤壁赋》等，就觉得中国的文人，与秋的关系特别深了。可是这秋的深味，尤其是中国的秋的深味，非要在北方，才感受得到底。
南国之秋，当然是也有它的特异的地方的，比如廿四桥的明月，钱塘江的秋潮，普陀山的凉雾，荔枝湾的残荷等等，可是色彩不浓，回味不永。比起北国的秋来，正象是黄酒之与白干，稀饭之与馍馍，鲈鱼之与大蟹，黄犬之与骆驼。
秋天，这北国的秋天，若留得住的话，我愿把寿命的三分之二折去，换得一个三分之一的零头。
Autumn in My Old Capital
Yu Dafu
Autumn, no matter where it happens, is always appealing, but autumn in Northern China, especially, is less diluted, quieter, and more melancholy. It is merely for the purpose of fully tasting these “flavors”—the autumnal flavors of my old capital—that I braved the long trip from Hangzhou to Qingdao and then to Peiping.
Autumn, of course, also happens in the south, but in a southern autumn, the flora is slower to wither, the air is denser with moisture, the sky is lighter in color, and it is more often rainy than windy. Muddling along as a loner, engulfed among the residents of the near southern cities like Suzhou, Shanghai, or Hangzhou, or the far southern ones like Xiamen, Hong Kong, or Guangzhou, I can only feel a little bit of the pureness and melancholy of autumn. There, I have never seen enough of the views of autumn, tasted enough of flavors of autumn, or explored enough of the poetic imagery of autumn. Autumn is neither a famous flower nor a luscious wine. That state of half-blooming and half-intoxication is not appropriate to the understanding of the season.
It has been more than a decade since I last experienced autumn in the north. In the south, every year when autumn came, I would always miss the reed catkins at the Joyous Pavilion, the willow silhouettes by the Fishing Tower, the chirping of insects in the West Hills, the midnight moon above the Jade Spring, and the chiming of the bells from the Poolside Mulberry Temple. In Beijing, however, even though you stay at home—say, you reside in a dilapidated rented house in the imperial city, with a sea of inhabitants, and you get up in the morning, making a bowl of strong tea, and sit in a spot facing the entire yard—you can also see the azure color high in the sky and hear the noise the domesticated pigeons make when they fly under the blue sky. From beneath a locust tree, counting strip after strip of sunbeams dripping down from the east through the foliage or quietly looking at the blue flowers of trumpet-shaped morning glories rooted in the middle of a broken wall, you will also automatically get a deep sense of autumn. Speaking of morning glories, I think the blue or white flowers are the best, the purple-blacks come next, and the light-reds rank last. If there are a few long, thin autumn grasses loosely spread out under them to set them off, so much the better.
The northern locust tree is yet another scenic element that would make people think of autumn. When you get up in the morning, you will see stamens and pistils—which look like flowers, but are actually not—all over the ground. When you step on them, you don’t hear anything or smell anything; you only have an extremely light and soft feeling of contact. After the street cleaner sweeps the tree-shaded ground, you will see strip after strip of sweeping marks on the earth. They look delicate and inspire a sense of leisure, and your subconscious mind will even register a little feeling of desolation. This is perhaps where lies the profound meaning of the ancient poetic line that “A falling leaf from a Chinese parasol manifests the arrival of autumn.”
The lingering, weak chirping of the autumnal harvest flies is even more characteristic of the north. Because there are trees everywhere and the houses are not very tall in Peiping, you can hear the harvest flies wherever you go. But in the south, you won’t be able to hear anything unless you go to the suburbs or take a trip into the hills. In Peiping, harvest flies, which are as common as crickets or mice, are like house pets for every family.
Don’t forget the autumnal rain! The autumnal rain in the north seems to fall in a way more distinctive, more flavorsome, and more akin to rain than that in the south.
Under the grey sky, after an abrupt cool wind comes the pitter-patter of rain. Soon after the brisk rain is over, the clouds begin to slowly roll to the west, the sky starts to turn blue again, and the sun pops its face out once more. A tobacco pipe between his lips, a leisurely townsman, clad in a thick lined jacket or a dark blue padded coat, would step out of the shade of the rain-washed skew bridge and stand under a bridgehead tree; when he sees someone he knows, he would let out a light sigh and say, in a slow and leisurely tone,
“Gosh, it’sss really getting chilly—” (Emphasizing the progressive “s” by highly pitching and dragging it.)
“Exactly! Hence, the saying ‘Each burstr of autumnal rain adds a burstr of chilliness!’”
When northerners pronounce the word “burst,” it always sounds like “burstr.” But, in terms of cadence, this distortion in pronunciation has the benefit of creating an accidental rhyme.
When autumn comes, the fruit trees in the north also boast of an unusual scene. The date trees should be the first kind. They grow everywhere—around the corners of houses, on walls, by outhouses, next to kitchen cabins. When the dates, like olives or pigeon eggs, begin to show their light-green and light-yellow colors amid the small oval-shaped leaves, the autumn season has reached its prime. By the time the leaves have fallen and the dates themselves have finished turning red, the northwest wind will start to blow, and this will then make the north a dusty and muddy world. The best period of an undiluted autumn in the north is at the transitional period between July and August, when dates, persimmons, and grapes are almost completely ripe. These are the golden days of the year.
Some critics say that all Chinese scholars, men of letters, and especially poets, have a strong propensity for decadence and that’s why quite a number of Chinese poems eulogize autumn. But don’t foreign poets do the same? I have neither delved much into foreign poetry nor want to make a list that will turn my pure prose into a piece of quotation-riddled lyric prose about autumn, but if you flip through a collection of poetry from Britain, Germany, France, Italy, etc. or through a poetry anthology from each of these countries, you are bound to see much eulogizing and bemoaning of the season.
The best-written and most exquisite parts of the voluminous idyllic pastoral poetry or of the verses on the four seasons produced by famous poets are those that describe autumn. This clearly reveals that all sentient animals and appreciative humans share an identical mentality toward the autumn season, which always gives them a deep, remote, serious, serious, and melancholic feeling. I believe that when autumn comes, not only poets, but even prison inmates, have deep, uncontrollable emotions. When it comes to autumn, no differences exist between nations, ethnicities or social classes. Since there is a term “autumnal scholar” in the Chinese language and some popular “autumnal verses” such as Ode to Autumnal Sounds by Ouyang Xiu and Ode to the Red Cliff by Su Shi, one would feel that the Chinese literati have a more profound relationship with autumn than their western counterparts. But this profound flavor of autumn, especially the profound flavor of a Chinese autumn, can only be tasted in the north.
Autumn in the south, of course, also has its special characteristics. Take, for instance, the bright moon over the Twenty-fourth Bridge, the autumnal tides in the Qiantang River, the cool mist on Mount Putuo, the late lotus in the Litchi Fruit Bay, etc. But none of these is deep in color, and none leaves a permanent aftertaste. Comparing a southern autumn to a northern autumn is like comparing yellow wine to white spirits, rice gruel to steamed bread, perch to big crab, or dogs to camels.
If I could keep autumn—this autumn of northern China—from leaving, I would trade two thirds of my lifetime for a life only a third as long but spent entirely in autumn.
