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澳门访书 第3期

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半个多世纪前的1948年,我曾随父亲钟敬文及母亲到澳门柯麟医生家小住,依稀有那么一股恬静的绿洲印象留在脑海中。好容易到2001年,我才有参加学术会议的机会重游澳门,寻访那久存心头的点点留痕。不过我在似曾游逛过的古老街道上匆忙穿行三天,我兴奋的心情却降到了冰点,原因就是我没有找到澳门任何一间图书馆!特别是连我童年小住的老房子也找不到了,这让我懊丧不已。近20多年来,我的足迹所到过的城市,从来没有找不到当地图书馆的情况,而我更是清楚地知道,190年前正是在这里出版过中英文对照的第一部字典:《华英字典》(A Dictionary of the Chinese Language)。这套3部6卷大型工具书的出现,给近代中西文化交流奠定了文字对应的基础,给西方人认识中国一个入门工具,也给中国人了解西方开拓了具体的手段,更把中国的《康熙字典》扩展成一门新学科――认识世界的工具书。可是,偏偏由于我的愚鲁,入宝山而空手返回。

回到北京,我通过伦敦的朋友把这部字典的初步资料邮寄回来看了之后,更加心痒难平。这书的编者就是一位了不起的人物,他的中文名马礼逊(Robert Morrison,1782―1834),当年是英国伦敦会传教士,他于1807年9月7日经美国到达广州,长期担任翻译工作。8年后的1815年开始出版由他编著的《华英字典》的第一部:《字典》(3卷),接着是第二部:《五车韵府》(2卷),到1822年是第三部:《英华字典》1卷。共6卷4595页。另外他还出版《广东土语词汇字典》和《马礼逊的中国观》等书。他在1824年被选为英国皇家学会会员,1834年被举为广东政厅秘书,死在广州,葬在澳门。其二子都在澳门出生,承父业为中西文化交流贡献良多。

转眼过了一年,我又有机会赴澳门开会。这次我先查阅旅游手册,从中获得提示,于是我在一天早上10点钟来到塔石汽车站,巧得很,在一扇被庆贺花篮遮住的一个门边,我看见了“中央图书馆”的铜牌,不过要到下午两点才开门,没有办法,我只好漫步前往澳门中心点的议事厅广场,浏览了民政总署。简单午餐后熬到了时辰终于进了图书馆。我上楼向馆员说明所找书名后,她耐心地在电脑上查找,却不见踪影。后来听说这个图书馆有六个分馆,其中民政总署分馆有老书,于是我又赶回议事广场民政总署二楼,原来这里才是古色古香的分馆呢!

这里工作的女士早就在等我,我说出找马礼逊的书,她们就拿出两大本,两书的原书皮早就没有了,一部上面有1817年写的序言,另一部则是1821年和1822年写的序言。

我急迫地问道:“可以复印一些吗?”她们微笑回答:“可以。”

我接着追问:“多少钱一页?”“5角澳门币。”

这个回答在大陆图书馆是根本不可能的,我无暇去数落家丑,忙着翻看条目内容,并报出要复印的页数,由她们在旁边记录。

女士去开机复印,我强压着内心的激情,约略观看这座典型的南欧风格建筑。它是模仿葡萄牙玛弗拉修道院图书馆而建的,天花板饰有古典风格的金粉浮雕,家具是按照路易十五时代风格设计的,从地板升到天花板的书架上放满洋装书,与建筑融为一体。这里存放着16世纪至20世纪葡萄牙人的历史文献多种,包括1822年创办的外国人在中国出版的第一份葡文报纸《蜜蜂华报》,当然更有马礼逊文库。我流连其间,醉迷于这梦幻般的书香境界中。到现在我都还想不起来我是如何抱着复印件回到宾馆的,内心中唯有感激,感谢马礼逊这位中国的老朋友对世界文化的贡献,感谢澳门图书馆对于藏书的保护和利用。

这几年我又陆续访问过澳门,还专门到白鸽巢旁的马礼逊堂去瞻仰,这里是马礼逊当年办的学校,朴素光洁的小小礼堂,让人遐思万千。中国第一个留英博士黄宽以及留美的容闳博士全在这里受过教育。礼堂背后就是马礼逊长眠地,在蝉鸣声中令我沉思不已。随着对马礼逊及其继承者们所开拓建构的中西文化交流的深入了解,我的探索兴趣愈加浓厚。其实马礼逊的字典就是以中国《康熙字典》为基础编著的,《五车韵府》也完全是按照《康熙字典》顺序排列,但介绍内容却换成为外国人学习中国文字而需要对应的发音和意思,连例句都是马礼逊自己改换选用的,自然其解释更是与西方文字意思相协调,并在书后附上文字发音检索表。这样一来,其功能就不仅适合外国人用了,中国人也可以通过此工具书去学习西方的文字和文化概念。但可惜的是中国人长期被封建政令所拘束,当年连与外国人交流都是杀头的罪名,所以这个好工具只落得被日本人拿去应用了。到现在,这部最先开拓中国新词语之源的工具书,还需要费大力气去重新挖掘。

澳门图书馆的宝藏还真多,仅是西方人顺着马礼逊的脚步而继续编辑出版的双语词典,我就发现多部,几乎占1909年以前出版的双语词典的一半,而且多是澳门本地出版的。这就难怪17世纪至19世纪希望了解的西方人都蜂拥到澳门,他们想使用从利玛窦到马礼逊所建构的知识桥梁来认识中国。澳门不像有些地方,一切以经济利益为本,更不追求荣华富贵过眼烟云,澳门的文化绿洲很恬静美丽,完全可以利用自身的文化优势,发展成一个文化之邦。

我衷心祝愿,21世纪稳定发展的中华民族,能够把澳门这个知识绿洲继续发扬光大,让中西文化交流的桥梁双通道上,交流成果更加丰硕。

(本文作者为北京社会科学院历史所研究员)

Seeking Rare Books in Macao

By Zhong Shaohua

My memory of Macao mostly came from my short-time stay at a doctor's house with my parents in 1948. It was not until 2001 that I visited Macao again. In the spare time during my attendance at an academic conference, I wandered in streets in search of the local library for three days. To my chagrin and disappointment, my mission had totally failed. It was the first time in the last 20 years and more that I had visited a city but failed to locate a library there. I knew clearly that the city library had A Dictionary of the Chinese Language published in Macao 190 years ago. The three-part 6-volume Chinese-English dictionary paved a way for cultural dialogues between China and the rest of the world.

After I was back to Beijing, a friend in London sent me brief information on the dictionary. The compiler of the landmark dictionary was Robert Morrison (1782-1834), the first Protestant missionary to China. He arrived in Guangzhou on September 7, 1807 from USA. He worked there as a translator. In 1815 he published the first part of the dictionary in 3 volumes. The second part in two volumes followed soon. In 1822, the third part in 1 volume was printed. The 6-volume dictionary had a total of 4,595 pages. This gigantic dictionary was based on Kangxi Dictionary, a royal project authorized and supervised by the Qing government. The entries in second part were arranged exactly in the same order as in Kangxi Dictionary, but contents were especially recreated to suit western readers. As a result, the dictionary was not only useful for foreigners to know about Chinese culture but also valuable for Chinese scholars to probe the western language and concepts. But unfortunately, mixing with foreigners was punishable by death in China at that time. Instead, the dictionary was greatly used by Japanese.

In 2002, I was in Macao again. This time I first checked the information on the library in a tourist brochure. It took me a good while to finally locate the dictionary. I asked the two women librarians to Xerox some important pages for me. I was so overjoyed with my find that I seemed to be in a trance when I held the copied pages in front of my chest and went back to the hotel. Even today I can's recall exactly how I went back to the hotel with the pages in my hands.

The Macao Library has treasures. Following the footsteps of Morrison, westerners came to Macao and continued to compile bilingual dictionaries for readers who wished to know China. I found that more than 50% of the Chinese bilingual dictionaries in the world before 1909 were published in Macao. No wonder Macao was the beachhead of that time for westerners who wished to learn about the great oriental empire. Unlike some other areas, Macao is not totally money-oriented nor does it seek nothing but fleeting fortunes and prosperity. The cultural oasis in Macao is beautiful and fruitful.