总有读者来吐槽我用《圣经》的风格或语汇来翻译托老的作品，然後说他们因此宁可去看别的译本。对自己喜欢的故事我赞成多看不同的译本，我自己就收藏了六个不同的《魔戒》译本。至於采用圣经腔，这事还真不是我说了算。底下是一封托老在《魔戒》出版前给朋友写的信。当时出版商做了好些试读本让托老到处找人读，听取意见。读者可看看托老是怎么说他自己的书的。我简单译了几段，没啥文采，也没译完（最後两段跟书无关的就不译了），大家将就着看吧。

142 To Robert Murray, S.J.

【罗伯特墨瑞神父是詹姆斯墨瑞爵士（牛津英语大辞典的创立者）的孙子，也是托尔金一家很熟的朋友。他读了一部分《魔戒》的排版稿和打字稿后，在托尔金的怂恿下写了些评论意见。他寄来的信里说，《魔戒》给了他很强烈的、「肯定和恩典的秩序兼容互通」的感觉，并且他将加拉德瑞尔的形象跟童女马利亚做了比较。他怀疑，将来会有多少批评家的评论是看懂了这本书后写的——「他们原有的知识和意识不足以将它确切分类，因此他们无法理解、不知该拿它怎么办」[1]。】

[Father Robert Murray, grandson of Sir James Murray (the founder of the Oxford English Dictionary) and a close friend of the Tolkien family, had read part of The Lord of the Rings in galley-proofs and typescript, and had, at Tolkien’s instigation, sent comments and criticism. He wrote that the book left him with a strong sense of ‘a positive compatibility with the order of Grace', and compared the image of Ga1adriel to that of the virgin Mary. He doubted whether many critics would be able to make much of the book –‘they will not have a pigeon-hole neatly labelled for it’.]

2 December 1953

76 Sandfield Road, Headington, Oxford

My dear Rob,

今晨收到你的长信，感觉太好了……若我随口说的话竟让你劳心费神给我的故事写评论，我真是抱歉。不过，老实跟你说，尽管赞扬（或其实不是赞扬，而是表达愉快，后者更佳）让人很愉快，但你这次和从前所说过的，才让我特别开心，因为你比其他任何人都更具洞察力，尤其针对某些方面而言，你甚至将我书中所述某些事物，以更清楚的方式向我揭露开来。我想我确知你说的恩典的秩序（译按：指上帝的创造）是什么意思；当然，还有你提及的圣母，我个人对庄严与质朴之美的一点微小认知，完全建立在此。《魔戒》在其根本上当然是一个宗教并且是天主教的故事；起初写的时候是无意识的，但在修订时已是有意为之。这是为什么我在这个想象世界里没有加入，或甚至是删除所有几乎跟宗教、迷信或仪式执行等相关的叙述。所有的宗教元素，不管我处理得多笨拙或听起来比我自己感觉的更狂妄，我都已将它们融入故事和象征符号里了。事实上，我有意为之的部分非常少；我最要感恩的是，我是在信仰中长大的（从八岁开始），这信仰滋养、教导了我所知的一切。我亏欠我母亲，她坚持改信天主教，并因为改变信仰而导致贫苦无依，英年早逝。[2]

It, was wonderful to get a long letter from you this morning.....I am sorry if casual words of mine have made you 1abour to criticize my work. But, to tell you the truth, though praise (or what is not quite the same thing, and better, expressions of pleasure) is pleasant, I have been cheered specially by what you have said, this time and before, because you are more perceptive, especially in some directions, than any one else, and have even revealed to me more clearly some things about my work. I think I know exactly what you mean by the order of Grace; and of course by your references to Our Lady, upon which all my own small perception of beauty both in majesty and simplicity is founded. The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like 'religion, to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism. However that is very clumsily put, and sounds more self-important than I feel. For as a matter of fact, I have consciously planned very little; and should chiefly be grateful for having been brought up (since I was eight) in a Faith that has nourished me and taught me all the little that I know; and that I owe to my mother, who clung to her conversion and died young, largely through the hardships of poverty resulting from it.

我的确不曾受过英文文学的滋养，在这方面我想你读的比我多多了；之所以如此，理由很简单，我从来没在英国文学中找到什么可以让我的心灵（或心灵与大脑一起）获得安息的。我是在古典文学中长大的，荷马的作品让我头一次发觉文学的愉悦。同时，身为一个语言学者，我能力所及范围内能欣赏到的审美，大部分来自文字的形式（尤其是从字形和字性[3]之间所产生的崭新联想），外国语言总是让我获得对事物的最大享受，也有人感觉遥远得无从喜欢起（譬如盎格鲁—萨克逊人）。不过这对我来说已经够了。

Certainly I have not been nourished by English Literature, in which I do not suppose I am better read than you; for the simple reason that I have never found much there in which to rest my heart (or heart and head together). I was brought up in the Classics, and first discovered the sensation of literary pleasure in Homer. Also being a philologist, getting a large part of any aesthetic pleasure that I am capable of from the form of words (and especially from the fresh association of word-form with word-sense), I have always best enjoyed things in a foreign language, or one so remote as to feel like it (such as Anglo-Saxon). But that is enough about me.

我恐怕你所说有关批评与出版的事，都将成真。我对出版充满恐惧，因为要不在乎他人所言是不可能的。我已经把自己的心暴露出来当箭靶子了。我想出版商也非常焦虑，他们极其盼望有越多人读这个预印稿越好，然后在胡批乱砍的评论家忙起来之前先拟定出某种见解跟评价……

I am afraid it is only too likely to be true: what you say about the critics and the public. I am dreading the publication, for it will be impossible not to mind what is said. I have exposed my heart to be shot at. I think the publishers are very anxious too; and they are very keen that as many people as possible should read advance copies, and form a sort of opinion before the hack critics get busy.....

I was sorry to hear that you are now without a 'cello, after having got some way (I am told) with that lovely and difficult instrument. Anyone who can play a stringed instrument seems to me a wizard worthy of deep respect. I love music, but have no aptitude for it; and the efforts spent on trying to teach me the fiddle in youth, have left me only with a feeling of awe in the presence of fiddlers. Slavonic languages are for me almost in the same category. I have had a go at many tongues in my time, but I am in no ordinary sense a ‘linguist’; and the time I once spent on trying to learn Serbian and Russian have left me with no practical results, only a strong impression of the structure and word-aesthetic.....

Please forgive the apparent unfriendliness of type! My typing does not improve. Except in speed. I am now much faster than with my laborious hand, which has to be spared as it quickly gets tired and painful. I have no doubt that you will also be hearing shortly from Edith.

With much love to you

Ronald Tolkien.

[1] 这句是意译。《魔戒》不是写实主义，不是人文主义，不是象征派，不是民族神话，不是魔幻传奇，不是宗教故事等等，这些「不是」，就是原文中所讲的「鸽子洞」，而批评家们没法把《魔戒》妥妥地放进其中任何一个鸽子洞里。墨瑞神父的绝妙预言后来果然应验了。

[2] 寡居的托尔金的母亲带着两个幼子从南非返回英国，随后从原来的新教信仰改信天主教后，亲友因为不满而不与她来往，对她的贫困不予援手，导致她在托尔金12岁时就病逝了。

[3] 身為語言學家，托尔金对于字的感觉不光是理性的理解，肯定還包括声音给他的感觉。因此，當他说word-sense，指的就不會光是字意，而是包括了一个字能带给他的所有感官反应，比如听起来的感觉。於是，相對於word-form：字形（形態），我將word-sense譯為字性（性质）。欢迎大家提出更好的译法。