Thể thơ: Hành  (thời kỳ: Trung Đường)

Lời tựa

元和十年，予左遷九江郡司馬。明年秋，送客湓浦口，聞船中夜彈琵琶者，聽其音，錚錚然有京都聲；問其人，本長安倡女，嘗學琵琶於穆曹二善才。年長色衰，委身為賈人婦。遂命酒，使快彈數曲，曲罷憫然。自敘少小時歡樂事，今漂淪憔悴，轉徙於江湖間。予出官二年 恬然自安，感斯人言，是夕，始覺有遷謫意，因為長句歌以贈之，凡六百一十六言，命曰琵琶行。

Nguyên Hoà thập niên, dư tả thiên Cửu Giang quận Tư mã. Minh niên thu, tống khách Bồn phố khẩu, văn thuyền trung dạ đàn tỳ bà giả, thính kỳ âm, tranh tranh nhiên hữu kinh đô thanh; vấn kỳ nhân, bản Trường An xướng nữ, thường học tỳ bà ư Mục, Tào nhị thiện tài. Niên trưởng sắc suy, uỷ thân vi cổ nhân phụ. Toại mệnh tửu, sử khoái đàn sổ khúc, khúc bãi mẫn nhiên. Tự tự thiếu tiểu thời hoan lạc sự, kim phiêu luân tiều tuỵ, chuyển tỷ ư giang hồ gian. Dư xuất quan nhị niên điềm nhiên tự an, cảm tư nhân ngôn, thị tịch, thuỷ giác hữu thiên trích ý, nhân vi trường cú ca dĩ tặng chi, phàm lục bách nhất thập lục ngôn, mệnh viết Tỳ bà hành.

Năm Nguyên Hoà thứ 10, ta về giữ chức Tư Mã ở quận Cửu Giang. Qua mùa thu năm sau, đêm ra tiễn khách bên bến sông Bồn, chợt nghe thuyền ai có tiếng đàn tỳ bà vọng lại. Nghe trong tiến đàn thánh thót, âm vang điệu nhạc ở kinh đô. Bèn hỏi gốc gác. Người đàn bà trả lời rằng "Tôi vốn là con hát, quê ở Trường An, học đàn tỳ bà với hai danh sư Mục và Tào. Nay tuổi đã cao, nhan sắc tàn tạ, lấy chồng làm con buôn (thường theo thuyền buôn đi đây đi đó)". Nghe vậy, cho dọn rượu ra đãi, xin nàng đàn lại cho nghe. Đàn xong cảm xúc vô vàn, nàng bèn kể lại cuộc đời mình từ lúc còn trẻ, vui sướng, cho tới lúc lưu lạc giang hồ khổ nhọc. Ta về đây làm quan đã được hai năm thanh thản yên ổn. Hôm nay nghe nàng nầy nói chuyện, cảm thương cho số phận lưu đầy! Bèn làm một bài thơ dài tặng nàng ta, gồm 616 lời, gọi là Tỳ bà hành.

Gồm các bản dịch : Phan Huy Vịnh - Trần Trọng Kim - Lam Nguyễn - Trần Nhất Lang - Nguyễn Phước Hậu - Nguyễn Tâm Hàn - bản dich anh ngữ
 

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English

THE SONG OF A GUITAR

In the tenth year of Yuanhe I was banished and demoted to be assistant official in Jiujiang. In the summer of the next year I was seeing a friend leave Penpu and heard in the midnight from a neighbouring boat a guitar played in the manner of the capital. Upon inquiry, I found that the player had formerly been a dancing-girl there and in her maturity had been married to a merchant. I invited her to my boat to have her play for us. She told me her story, heyday and then unhappiness. Since my departure from the capital I had not felt sad; but that night, after I left her, I began to realize my banishment. And I wrote this long poem -- six hundred and twelve characters.

I was bidding a guest farewell, at night on the Xunyang River,
Where maple-leaves and full-grown rushes rustled in the autumn.
I, the host, had dismounted, my guest had boarded his boat,
And we raised our cups and wished to drink-but, alas, there was no music.
For all we had drunk we felt no joy and were parting from each other,
When the river widened mysteriously toward the full moon --
We had heard a sudden sound, a guitar across the water.
Host forgot to turn back home, and guest to go his way.
We followed where the melody led and asked the player's name.
The sound broke off...then reluctantly she answered.
We moved our boat near hers, invited her to join us,
Summoned more wine and lanterns to recommence our banquet.
Yet we called and urged a thousand times before she started toward us,
Still hiding half her face from us behind her guitar.
...She turned the tuning-pegs and tested several strings;
We could feel what she was feeling, even before she played:
Each string a meditation, each note a deep thought,
As if she were telling us the ache of her whole life.
She knit her brows, flexed her fingers, then began her music,
Little by little letting her heart share everything with ours.
She brushed the strings, twisted them slow, swept them, plucked them --
First the air of The Rainbow Skirt, then The Six Little Ones.
The large strings hummed like rain,
The small strings whispered like a secret,
Hummed, whispered-and then were intermingled
Like a pouring of large and small pearls into a plate of jade.
We heard an oriole, liquid, hidden among flowers.
We heard a brook bitterly sob along a bank of sand...
By the checking of its cold touch, the very string seemed broken
As though it could not pass; and the notes, dying away
Into a depth of sorrow and concealment of lament,
Told even more in silence than they had told in sound....
A silver vase abruptly broke with a gush of water,
And out leapt armored horses and weapons that clashed and smote --
And, before she laid her pick down, she ended with one stroke,
And all four strings made one sound, as of rending silk
There was quiet in the east boat and quiet in the west,
And we saw the white autumnal moon enter the river's heart.
...When she had slowly placed the pick back among the strings,
She rose and smoothed her clothing and, formal, courteous,
Told us how she had spent her girlhood at the capital,
Living in her parents' house under the Mount of Toads,
And had mastered the guitar at the age of thirteen,
With her name recorded first in the class-roll of musicians,
Her art the admiration even of experts,
Her beauty the envy of all the leading dancers,
How noble youths of Wuling had lavishly competed
And numberless red rolls of silk been given for one song,
And silver combs with shell inlay been snapped by her rhythms,
And skirts the colour of blood been spoiled with stains of wine....
Season after season, joy had followed joy,
Autumn moons and spring winds had passed without her heeding,
Till first her brother left for the war, and then her aunt died,
And evenings went and evenings came, and her beauty faded --
With ever fewer chariots and horses at her door;
So that finally she gave herself as wife to a merchant
Who, prizing money first, careless how he left her,
Had gone, a month before, to Fuliang to buy tea.
And she had been tending an empty boat at the river's mouth,
No company but the bright moon and the cold water.
And sometimes in the deep of night she would dream of her triumphs
And be wakened from her dreams by the scalding of her tears.
Her very first guitar-note had started me sighing;
Now, having heard her story, I was sadder still.
“We are both unhappy -- to the sky's end.
We meet. We understand. What does acquaintance matter?
I came, a year ago, away from the capital
And am now a sick exile here in Jiujiang --
And so remote is Jiujiang that I have heard no music,
Neither string nor bamboo, for a whole year.
My quarters, near the River Town, are low and damp,
With bitter reeds and yellowed rushes all about the house.
And what is to be heard here, morning and evening? --
The bleeding cry of cuckoos, the whimpering of apes.
On flowery spring mornings and moonlit autumn nights
I have often taken wine up and drunk it all alone,
Of course there are the mountain songs and the village pipes,
But they are crude and-strident, and grate on my ears.
And tonight, when I heard you playing your guitar,
I felt as if my hearing were bright with fairymusic.
Do not leave us. Come, sit down. Play for us again.
And I will write a long song concerning a guitar.“
...Moved by what I said, she stood there for a moment,
Then sat again to her strings-and they sounded even sadder,
Although the tunes were different from those she had played before....
The feasters, all listening, covered their faces.
But who of them all was crying the most?
This Jiujiang official. My blue sleeve was wet.


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Thi nhân ký gởi vào bài thơ nỗi lòng của kẻ luân lạc, không nói đến chữ oán, mà nặng về chữ nghiệp, khóc thương cho hoàn cảnh, mà không trách móc đến gì, đến ai. Người đọc thấy mình cũng như kẻ trên tiệc, nước mắt đầm đìa, thương cho thân phận con người, tuỳ thuộc vào hoàn cảnh như một chiếc thuyền lao đao ngoài biển cho cuộc đời, khi vinh hoa thì vậy, khi luân lạc thì vậy, nếu dứt hết mọi trần duyên, thì không biết kiếp con người sinh ra để làm gì? Để tu chăng? Đối với một kiếp người nghệ sĩ, có lẽ để tận hưởng cái ngọt ngào đắng cay,... thì phải hơn. Nhất là một người nghệ sĩ, dạt dào tình cảm, tinh tế, nhạy cảm như Bạch Cư Dị, thương xót cho đời mà cũng thiết tha vì đời... Bài thơ có nhiều chỗ diễn tả âm nhạc rất hay, có chỗ nói đến lúc tiếng đàn ngừng mà nghe "biệt hữu sầu ám hận sinh", Bạch Cư Dị là người thưởng thức âm nhạc thật cao diệu.(điệp luyến hoa)


 

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