The Queen’s Heart 翻译习作

The Queen’s Heart

Word of the car crash reached Balmoral Castle, in Scotland, at one o’clock in the morning of August 31, 1997. Word of the death came through at four. Prince Charles was in residence, with his sons; the Queen advised him not to wake them (they would need all their strength), adding,” We must get the radios out of their rooms.” Charles broke the news just after seven. Prince Harry, then twelve, couldn’t quite take it in. Was everyone sure? He asked; would somebody check? The boys were asked if they would like to accompany the family to church. (It was Sunday.)Prince William, then fifteen, wanted to attend—so he could “talk to Mummy”.

女王之心

一九九七年八月三十一号凌晨一点，出车祸的消息传到苏格兰的巴尔莫勒尔堡。紧接着在凌晨四点，传来的是死亡的噩耗。当时，查尔斯王子和他的孩子们正待在处所里面。女王建议他不要吵醒孩子们（他们将会需要他们所有的力量来面对这件事儿），随后女王又说到：“我们必须把收音机从他们房间里拿走。”早上七点，查尔斯王子宣读了这个噩耗。年值十二岁的哈里王子完全不能接受这个噩耗。他问到：“你们确定吗？你们检查仔细了没有？”这两个孩子被问到是否想陪他们的家人一起去教堂。（当天是星期天。）年值十五岁

的威廉王子想要参加——这样他就可以和“妈妈说会儿话”。

“The world’s going to go completely

mad,” Charles said,

presciently, when he heard. By the following Thursday, the Royal Family was facing the strangest crisis in its history. Now, certainly ,national cohesion, and indeed public order, depended on a preposterous punctilio: the people wanted a flag flying at half-mast above Buckingham Palace, and the Queen wasn’t having it. Flags were flying at half-mast at other royal seats; the flag at the palace, however, flies only when the Queen is staying there (and she was still in Scotland). The flag at the place doesn’t go halfway down for anybody’s death, even the monarch’s. Within the inner circle, the dispute was unprecedentedly fearsome. (“A lot of people,” an aide said, “were heavily scarred by it.”) the desperate countries were unanimous: the flag must go up. But the Windsors hadn’t yet sensed which way the wind was blowing.

听到这个噩耗后，查尔斯王子预见性得说到：“整个世界都将会沉浸在悲伤之中。”在紧接着的星期四，王室家族的成员们正面临着一场王室历史上最奇怪的危机。现在，确定的是，民族的凝聚力和稳定的社会秩序决定了一个荒谬的细节：人们想让在白金汉宫上方飘扬的国旗下降半旗，这是女王都不曾拥有的礼节。其他王室成员宫殿的旗帜都下降了

半旗；然而，白金汉宫上方的旗子只有当女王待在那里的时候才会高高飘扬（此时她仍然在苏格兰）。在女王宫殿上方的旗子从不曾为任何人的死亡下降半旗，甚至是国王的死亡。王室内部成员之间的争论是空前的可怕。（一个助手说：“许多人都非常害怕这件事情给他们带来严重的创伤。”）孤注一掷的王室贵族一致同意：半旗必须升起。但住在温莎的王室成员们还没有意识到窗外的民意是怎样的。

As in all matters royal, we are dealing here not with pros and cons, with arguments and counter-arguments; we are dealing with signs and symbols, with fever and magic. To the Queen, the flag (or its absence) was an emblem of her nonnegotiable inheritance. To her subjects, the flag was an emblem--a display—of grief; and a display of grief was what they were demanding. Prime Minister Tony Blair was onto “the mood” so quickly that you feel he must have partaken of it. Before noon on that same Sunday, he huskily addressed the nation: “We are today a nation, in Britain, in a state of shock, in mourning, in grief that is so deeply painful for us… She was the People’s Princess, and that’s how she will stay, how she will remain in our hearts and in our memories forever.” Now the British newspapers, having cheerfully savaged Diana for years (right up to and including that weekend), were cheerfully at work on her black-bordered canonization. “WHERE IS OUR QUEEN? WHERE

IS HER FLAG?”“SHOW US YOUR CARE.”“YOUR PEOPLE ARE SUFFERING. SPEAK TO US, MA’AM.”

正如王室所有的事情一样，在这件事情上，我们现在解决的不是事情的利与弊和事情的有理和无理；我们现在解决的是符号和象征，热爱和追随。对女王来说，国旗（或者说它的存在）是一个她毫无争议遗产的象征。对于她的子民来说，这面旗帜是一个象征——一个悲伤的展示；并且这个正是他们所要求的悲伤的展示。首相托尼·布莱尔进入这种悲痛的“情绪”如此之快以至于你觉得他一定参与了这件事情。当天正午之前，首相哽咽得发表了全国讲话：“今天的我们是一个民族。在英格兰，我们都处在震惊，哀痛和对我们来说是深深的疼痛的悲伤之中??她是我们这个民族的王妃，那是她被保留的称谓，她将永远存活在我们的心中，被铭记在我们的脑海里。”现在，英国的报纸在猛烈抨击戴安娜多年以后（直到现在，包括出事的那个周末），开始高兴地致力于将她追封为我们民族的圣者。“我们的女王在哪里？”“她的旗帜在哪里？”“让我们知道你很在乎”“你的臣民正在遭受苦难。女王，请和我们谈一谈。”

Diana’s funeral was set for Saturday. By now the Queen had adapted to the new reality. She flew down on Friday afternoon; she would speak, she would show us she cared; the flag, which had not been lowered for her father, GeorgeⅥ, would be lowered for Diana.

戴安娜王妃的葬礼被安排在周六。现在这个时候，女王已经接受了这个新的现实。周五下午她将飞到伦敦；她将会发表讲话，她要告诉民众她在乎；不曾为她父亲，乔治六世，降下半旗的旗帜，将会为戴安娜降下半旗。

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