《夢中美人》配《蝶戀花》

我曾任葉圣陶先生秘書多年，與長公子至善兄情同手足。3月4日至善兄病故。在悼念他的日子里，我想起他還有個小小的遺愿。

至善兄家學淵源，興趣廣泛。文、史、哲、經、教，數、理、化、生、地幾乎都喜歡。此外他還喜歡音樂，有一年呂叔湘、張志公等先生發(fā)起給圣陶先生祝壽，在同和居樓上擺了三桌酒席，席間至善兄引吭高歌，唱的是《賣布謠》，此歌是上個世紀二三十年代劉大白作的詞，趙元任配曲。歌詞開頭四句是：“嫂嫂織布，哥哥賣布。賣布買米，稀飯落肚。”下面不記得了，只記得韻腳有“褲”、“布”、“補”字樣。此歌經至善兄渾厚沉郁的男中音唱出來，很是好聽。

1995年我去看望至善兄，只見桌上放著一臺錄音機和許多音樂磁帶，其中有德沃夏克、舒伯特、莫扎特、貝多芬等名曲，原來他正在興致勃勃地從事一項工作：他想把這些名曲與一些著名的唐詩宋詞相匹配。那天我在他家，他剛用舒伯特的《搖籃曲》配完白居易的《賦得古原草送別》、用德沃夏克的《新大陸》配曹操的《龜雖壽》。我坐在那里，還替他看出唐詩宋詞里的好幾個錯字。過了一段時間，他給我寄來一本剛出版的《古詩詞新唱》，還夾了幾張他和我的合影。

1998年春節(jié)，至善兄寄了一張賀年片給我，上面題了一首他的詞作《蝶戀花》。詞作內容大體講了他的編輯生涯，末兩句印象很深：“句酌字斟還未妥，案頭積稿又成垛”。后來這首詞他謄正后印在《我是編輯》的扉頁背面右下角，他送我此書的題簽落款時間是“1998國慶”。有一天，我跟他說：“我很喜歡你的《蝶戀花》，一般的詞牌名與內容是‘勿搭界’的，只有這首詞牌名與內容很貼切。記得1956年葉（圣陶）先生贈詩祝朱文叔先生（時任人民教育出版社副總編輯）六十大壽，句云：‘舊學蜂成蜜，新知鯨吸川。’‘蜂成蜜’和‘蝶戀花’，比喻編輯工作是十分貼切的。現在工人有《咱們工人有力量》，戰(zhàn)士有《我是一個兵》，編輯好像還沒有一支歌。你就把《蝶戀花》也譜成曲子唱吧，還可以在報刊上發(fā)表，作為《編輯之歌》傳唱開來。”他苦笑了一下說，“那也總得等重編父親的文集以后了。”

然而由于至善兄編輯工作忙碌、繁重，最終沒有把《蝶戀花》譜成曲子，他這個小小愿望終成一個沒有完成的遺愿。

為了替好友至善兄實現上述遺愿，我嘗試著用[美]S.C.福斯特（1826-1864）《夢中美人》配至善兄的《蝶戀花》，曲是配成了，但究竟妥善否，這還得求證于編輯出版界的同仁和音樂界的朋友。

《蝶戀花》是至善兄一生編輯工作經驗的總結，也是值得弘揚的敬業(yè)精神和守則，即：“添毫”不“添足”，“點睛”不“點腮”，“丹黃”不“信手”。

此歌如能傳唱開來，可能成為第一首《編輯之歌》而載入編輯出版史和音樂史的史冊，也許還因其將中國古典詩詞與西方近代名曲相結合的形式，從而促進中西文化交融而受到世人的注目。

這首《蝶戀花》詞是：

樂在其中無處躲。訂史刪詩，元是圣人做。神見添毫添足叵，點睛龍起點腮破。信手丹黃寧復可？難得心安，怎解眉間鎖。句酌字斟還未妥，案頭積稿又成垛。

A Poem Finally Set to Music

By Shi Xiaofeng

I used to work as secretary for Ye Shengtao (1894-1988， author， editor and educator) for years and befriended his eldest son Ye Zhishan， who passed away on March 4th， 2006. While reminiscing about the friendship， I recalled that he had a wish to be fulfilled.

A well educated scholar， Ye Zhishan was endowed with various talents and took strong interest in a wide range of subjects: literature， history， philosophy， classics， education， science， biology， geology， and so on. And he had an aptitude for music. One year， Masters Lu Shuxiang and Zhang Zhigong proposed to hold a party to celebrate Ye Shengtao’s birthday. A three-table banquet was held on the second floor of a restaurant. During the party， Ye Zhishan sang a song whose lyrics was by Liu Dabai and set to music by Zhao Yuanren in the 1930s. I was impressed by Ye Zhishan’s baritone.

One day in 1995 I visited him at his house. On a table were a record player and a stack of music tapes with pieces composed by masters such as Dvorak， Beethoven， Schubert， and Mozart. It turned out that he was doing a music project of his own. He wanted to match some most famous poems of the Tang and the Song dynasties with musical masterpieces by these great composers. Just before my arrival that day， he had found some perfect matches. He set a poem by the Tang poet Bai Juyi to Lullaby by Schubert and found a match between a Cao Cao poem and Dvorak’s Brave New World. I sat with him and helped weed out a few misspelt words. Shortly after this visit， he sent me a book entitled New Tunes of Ancient Poems and a few pictures we had taken together.

Ye Zhishan sent me a greeting card for the Spring Festival 1998. On the card was a poem he wrote in the tune of The Butterflies in Love with Flowers， a set tune of Ci poem first invented in the Song Dynasty. The poem talked about his profound understanding of being an editor. Later on another occasion I had the chance to chat with him about this poem. I said that other poems set to this tune might bear no relation to the name of the tune， but his matched perfectly. I suggested that he might find a new tune for his poem so that editors could have a song of their own. However， he said it would have to wait until he had been done with editing a new collection of his father’s works.

But Ye Zhishan did not find time to set the poem to music due to his heavy workload as an editor. Now he is no longer with us. So I used his approach and set out to find a tune by a foreign master for Ye Zhishan's poem. I succeeded. His poem was matched with Beautiful Dreamer by Stephen Collin Foster (1826-1864)， arguably the American's first truly great professional songwriter.

(Translated by David)