李漁•《閒情偶記•文藝》翻譯

閒情偶記·文藝
Pleasant Diversions: Literacy

李漁
Li Yu

婦人讀書習字，所難只在入門。入門之後，其聰明必過於男子，以男子念紛，而婦人心一故也。導之入門，貴在情竇未開之際，開則志念稍分，不似從前之專一。然買姬置妾，多在三五、二八之年，娶而不御，使作蒙童求我者，寧有幾人？如必俟情竇未開，是終身無可授之人矣。惟在循循善誘，勿阻其機，“撲作教刑”一語，非爲女徒而設也。
Females find reading and writing difficult only at the point of entry. Once they have got their foot in the door, they are quicker to learn than males, because males lack concentration, while females pay undivided attention. It is best to show them across the threshold before they are initiated into sex, because once they are so initiated, their firmness of purpose suffers somewhat, and they are not as single-minded as before. The trouble is, concubines are installed at the age of fifteen or sixteen, usually, and how many of us can treat them as apprentices seeking instruction from us, instead of taking them to bed? We would never have a student all our lives if we had to wait for a virgin. The only thing is to lead them on gently and patiently, taking care not to blunt their initiative – the use of the stick as a teaching aid, as recommended in our Book of History, does not apply to female students.

先令識字，字識而後教之以書。識字不貴多，每日僅可數字，取其筆畫最少，眼前易見者訓之。由易而難，由少而多，日積月累，則一年半載以後，不令讀書而自解尋章覓句矣。乘其愛看之時，急覓傳奇之有情節、小說之無破綻者，聽其翻閱，則書非書也，不怒不威而引人登堂入室之明師也。其故維何？以傳奇、小說所載之言，盡是常談俗語，婦人閱之，若逢故物。譬如一句之中，共有十字，此女已識者七，未識者三，順口唸去，自然不差。是因已識之七字，可悟未識之三字，則此三字也者，非我教之，傳奇、小說教之也。由此而機鋒相觸，自能曲喻旁通。再得男子善爲開導，使之由淺而深，則共枕論文，較之登壇講藝，其爲時雨之化，難易奚止十倍哉？
A girl should be first taught to recognize characters, and only afterwards taught to write them. There is no virtue in quantity: just a few characters each day will do, teaching first those which have the fewest strokes, and which represent things near at hand. As the days and months pass, she can progress from easy to hard, and from few to many. After six months or a year, you won’t have to assign her any passages, she will know how to find things to read by herself. Before her interest in reading flags, you should look out some romances with a good plot, and some novels without obvious weaknesses, and let her leaf through them. In this way a book will not be a book, but a not-angry and not-forbidding teacher who will lead her into the inner halls of learning. Why do I say that? Because the language of romances and novels is the common talk of everyday, and when a woman reads it, it is like meeting with familiar things. For example, if in a sentence there are ten characters and she knows seven and doesn’t know three, let her read it our naturally and there will be no mistake, because she can guess the three characters she does not know from the seven characters she does know. Thus, those three characters were not taught by me, but by the roman or novel. By this means her wits are activated, and she can get the answer on her own by inference. If on top of that a man takes her well in hand and guides her progress from shallow to deep, his discourses on literacy while in bed with her will enter her mind like the timely rain, and will be infinitely easier to absorb than classroom lectures.

十人之中，拔其一二最聰慧者，日與談詩，使之漸通聲律，但有說話鏗鏘，無重複聱牙之字者，即作詩能文之料也。蘇夫人說“春夜月勝於秋夜月，秋夜月令人慘悽，春夜月令人和悅。”此非作詩，隨口所說之話也。東坡因其出口合律，許以能詩，傳爲佳話。此即說話鏗鏘，無重複聱牙，可以作詩之明驗也。其餘女子，未必人人若是，但能書義稍通，則任學諸般技藝，皆是鎖鑰到手，不憂阻隔之人矣。
One or two out of ten concubines may be selected for their superior intelligence, and these you can talk to every day about poetry, and by and by, make them understand tone and metre. As long as their speech has a ring to it, and they don’t keep repeating themselves or use grating words, then they have the makings of a poet or prose-writer. The wife of Su Dongpo said, “The moon on a spring night is better than the moon on an autumn night. on an autumn night makes you feel cold and wretched, the moon on a spring night makes you feel good and glad.” This was not a poem, it was a causal remark. Yet Dongpo thought it had a good rhythm, and praised his wife for being able to make poetry. His words have since been much quoted, and go to prove what I said, that if a person’s speech has a ring to it, and has no awkward repetitions or jarring sounds, then they have the makings of a poet. The other girls may not all reach this level, but if they can get the hang of books, they will have the key to the various arts of letters in their hands, and need not fear being locked out.