Mon, Aug 21, 2017 page9

• USING IDIOMS 活用成語

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  Chinese practice

  江山易改，本性難移

  It’s easier to change the landscape than your essential nature

  

  Illustration of a leopard from Lloyd’s Natural History: “A hand-book to the Carnivora. Part 1, Cats, civets, and mungoose” by Richard Lydekker, 1896. 描繪花豹之插圖，選自《洛伊自然史》〈食肉目手冊第一部分 — 貓、麝貓及貓鼬〉，理查‧萊德克著，一八九六年。

  Photo: Wikimedia Commons
  照片：維基共享資源

  (jiang1 shan1 yi4 gai3 ben3 xing4 nan2 yi2)

  晚明白話文學作家馮夢龍（1574～1645）在其作所著短篇小說集《醒世恆言》第三十五章〈徐老僕義憤成家〉中寫到一句「常言道得好，江山易改，稟性難移」，由前句「常言道得好」可知，在當時「江山易改，稟性難移」（改變自然地形很容易，但要改變一個人的天性卻很難）一句已是普遍的說法。此句極似年代更早的元曲《謝金吾詐拆清風府》第三折中一句「山河易改，本姓難移」，但此句以姓氏的「姓」代替本性的「性」，或許是應俏皮的情節而以諧音的趣味呈現。現今所用以描述改變自己之困難、與自己天性奮戰的成語「江山易改，本性難移」，便是綜合以上兩句而來。

  先知耶利米也了解這個道理。聖經所記載的先知耶利米，其著述年代在西元前六百年前後。舊約耶利米書第十三章二十三節（欽定版聖經英譯）中，他說道：「古實人豈能改變皮膚呢？豹豈能改變斑點呢？若能，你們這習慣行惡的，便能行善了。」（和合本中譯）換句話說，耶利米認為，正如我們不能改變自己皮膚的顏色，或豹不能改變其毛皮上的花紋，要改變一個人的行為方式是不可能的。英文諺語「a leopard cannot change its spots」（豹不能改變牠的斑點）便是由此而來。

  （台北時報編譯林俐凱譯）

  雖說江山易改，本性難移，他還是克服了愛拖延的缺點，把報告如期完成，跌破眾人眼鏡。

  (Despite what they say about leopards not being able to change their spots, he overcame his own procrastination problem and finished his report on time. You could hear the jaws dropping.)

  別指望他結婚就會浪子回頭——江山易改，本性難移，你還是死了這條心吧。

  (Don’t hold out any hope he’ll change his ways once he’s married. A leopard cannot change its spots. You can give up on that idea.)

  英文練習

  a leopard cannot change its spots

  When the late Ming Dynasty vernacular writer Feng Menglong (1574–1645) wrote the phrase 江山易改，稟性難移 (altering the natural landscape is easy; not so changing one’s natural disposition) in Chapter 35 — “In Righteous Wrath, Old Servant Xu Builds Up a Family Fortune” — of his short story collection Stories to Awaken the World, he prefaced it with “it is well said that...,” suggesting the phrase was already in common parlance even then. Indeed, it is virtually identical to 山河易改，本姓難移 (altering the landscape is easy; not so changing one’s surname) that appeared in the play Xie Jinwu Underhandedly Tears Down Clear Breeze Mansion in the preceding Yuan Dynasty. In that phrase, the character for “nature” (性, xing) was substituted for “surname” (姓, xing), possibly as a play on words. The modern version of the phrase, describing the difficulty in changing the kind of person you are, of “fighting against your own nature,” is an amalgamation of those two: 江山易改，本性難移: “altering the natural landscape is easy; not so changing one’s innate character.”

  It’s a truism that was not lost on the biblical prophet Jeremiah, who was writing around 600 BCE. In Jeremiah 13:23 (King James Version), it says “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye [you] also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.” In other words, Jeremiah was saying that just as we cannot change the color of our skin, or the leopard the pattern on its skin, so is it impossible for someone to change their ways. From this we get the English saying “a leopard cannot change its spots.”

  (Paul Cooper, Taipei Times)

  You’ll never get him to change his ways. A leopard cannot change its spots.

  （你是改變不了他的。江山易改，本性難移。）

  Asking him to start coming to work on time would be like asking a leopard to change its spots.

  （要他準時來上班就像要太陽從西邊出來一樣不可能。）
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