莎士比亞十四行詩第18首古譯

我若將君比夏天，

夏輸情愫少柔纖：

花苞五月摧風劍，

晴翠三春割鐵鐮，

天眼懸空火炙日，

桂輝蒙翳霧遮蟾，

無常命運剪金綫，

有味芳華落草間。

另覓恆青夏月妍，

晴川歷歷在君顏，

死神欲毀缺長鞭。

一聖吟詩推舊律，

萬家開卷讀新篇，

賜君不朽在人寰。

注釋

中譯為一首七律一首“浣溪沙”詞，詩中用典之“金線”有兩解：一是金絲線，如唐人秦韜玉 《貧女》詩所詠：“苦恨年年壓金線，為他人作嫁衣裳。”二是初生柳條之喻，如唐人施肩吾 《禁中新柳》所詠：“萬條金線帶春煙，深染青絲不直錢。”但此處亦可解以西典，即希臘神話中凡人的生命線，由命運女神三姊妹中的神剪手（Atropos）負責依照人的命數剪斷。

Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

   So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

   So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.