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鲁比·拉尔在《女王努尔·贾汉的传奇统治》一书中，仔细研究探讨了努尔·贾汉的人生。努尔·贾汉是莫卧儿第四代君王贾汉吉尔的王后，她的美貌还有她与君王的爱情故事广为印度民众传颂，但努尔·贾汉绝不止艳后那么简单，她有谋略有胆识，因丈夫耽于享乐，身体不佳，她从1611年开始摄政，直至贾汉吉尔过世，可以说是印度第一位女王。后来她卷入皇位之争，支持的继承人遭遇失败，最后不得已退出政治舞台，其功绩就此淹没在历史长河中。
双 语 精 读
Mughal history
莫卧儿历史
Not just a pretty face
不止是艳后那么简单
Print edition | Books and arts Jul 19th 2018
Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan. By Ruby Lal. W.W. Norton & Company; 336 pages; $27.95 and £19.99.
The Mandarin-Language Version
《女王努尔·贾汉的传奇统治》。作者：鲁比·拉尔；出版社：W·W·诺顿出版社；页数：336页；售价：27.95美元或19.99英镑。
THAT India’s Mughal emperors could be devoted to their queens is no surprise. The Taj Mahal, their most famous monument, was a homage to the memory of Mumtaz Mahal, the emperor Shah Jahan’s most-mourned wife. Less well-known is that Mumtaz’s aunt (and Shah Jahan’s stepmother), Nur Jahan, was, for 16 years from 1611, in effect India’s co-ruler.
The Mandarin-Language Version
印度莫卧儿王朝的国王对王后一往情深，这事已经见多不怪了。莫卧儿最著名的古迹泰姬陵，就是为了纪念国王沙·贾汉最爱的亡妻穆塔兹·马哈尔而建的。相较之下穆塔兹的姑姑（沙·贾汉的继母）就没那么有名了，她叫努尔·贾汉，从1611年开始与丈夫共同执政，长达16年。
In fact, according to Ruby Lal’s biography, she became “prime minister as well as empress”. Uniquely for a Mughal woman, her name featured on coins. Not until Indira Gandhi became prime minister in 1966 would India again be ruled by a woman. (Queen Victoria was rather hands-off.)
The Mandarin-Language Version
实际上，在鲁比·拉尔的传记中，努尔·贾汉身兼“首相和女王”二职。她是唯一一位将名字印在硬币上的莫卧儿女性。直到1966年英迪拉·甘地成为首相时，印度才再次迎来另一位“女王”（英女王维多利亚只是印度名义上的统治者，并不插手政事）。
Not that Nur Jahan has been forgotten. Hers is a household name in South Asia, and her story has been told in at least eight films, several plays and many historical romances. But she is famous for having won the heart of her husband, the emperor Jahangir, with her beauty, and for using her charm to promote her own interests and her allies’. She came to be seen, in Ms Lal’s words, as “a gold-digger and schemer”, the “besotted” Jahangir as a “drunk, stoned and oversexed despot”.
The Mandarin-Language Version
不是说努尔·贾汉为世人遗忘。在南亚，她的名字家喻户晓，讲述其故事的电影就不下八部，还有戏剧和历史小说若干。不过人们津津乐道的还是她如何凭借倾城的美貌使国王贾汉吉尔为之倾倒，之后又是如何用自己的魅力帮自己和同党谋取利益。用拉尔女士的话说，世人认为她是一个“为了钱财嫁给皇帝并且心计满腹的人”，而“迷昏了头”的贾汉吉尔则是一个“酒气熏天，神智恍惚，耽于色欲的暴君”。
Not that Nur Jahan has been forgotten. Hers is a household name in South Asia, and her story has been told in at least eight films, several plays and many historical romances. But she is famous for having won the heart of her husband, the emperor Jahangir, with her beauty, and for using her charm to promote her own interests and her allies’. She came to be seen, in Ms Lal’s words, as “a gold-digger and schemer”, the “besotted” Jahangir as a “drunk, stoned and oversexed despot”.
The Mandarin-Language Version
不是说努尔·贾汉为世人遗忘。在南亚，她的名字家喻户晓，讲述其故事的电影就不下八部，还有戏剧和历史小说若干。不过人们津津乐道的还是她如何凭借倾城的美貌使国王贾汉吉尔为之倾倒，之后又是如何用自己的魅力帮自己和同党谋取利益。用拉尔女士的话说，世人认为她是一个“为了钱财嫁给皇帝并且心计满腹的人”，而“迷昏了头”的贾汉吉尔则是一个“酒气熏天，神智恍惚，耽于色欲的暴君”。
This cartoonish version is not total fantasy. Nur was Jahangir’s 20th and last wife (by his own count; other estimates number his harem in the hundreds). He was indeed a heavy drinker—possibly never fully sober, by one report—and a user of opium. But Ms Lal’s meticulous book seeks to show that history has been unfair to Nur Jahan, a woman of many talents and remarkable force of character.
The Mandarin-Language Version
脸谱化的描述也不全是想象。努尔是贾汉吉尔的第二十任，也是最后一任妻子（这是国王自己的说法，外人估计他的妻妾可能数以百计）。他确实酗酒成性，脑子或许从未真正清醒过，而且据一消息称，他可能还是个瘾君子。不过，拉尔女士于书中细致入微地展现的却是历史对努尔·贾汉的不公，和她那熠熠的才华以及值得称道的人格魅力。
She designed gorgeous gardens and the tomb that became the model for the Taj Mahal itself. She was a great tiger huntress and brilliant shot (a classic portrait shows her tamping down the gunpowder in a musket). She was an accomplished soldier, planning the operation that rescued her husband from a kidnapping. And she was a skilled exponent of the ruthless power politics of the Mughal court, where it was a tradition for princes to rebel against emperor-fathers, and to take no prisoners.
The Mandarin-Language Version
她曾设计出绝妙的花园和墓地，为后来泰姬陵提供了典范。她善于猎虎，精于射击（有一副经典画像描绘了她为滑膛枪压实火药的场景）。她在军事上也有建树，曾安排行动拯救她遭绑架的的丈夫。她还深谙莫卧儿宫廷里残酷的权力游戏，明白王庭里王子不择手段地造反夺位已是常态。
Nur Jahan’s accomplishments have been belittled for two reasons. One is that history is written by its victors, and she lost a power struggle on Jahangir’s death—to Shah Jahan. To erase her from history, he may even have tried to withdraw the coins that bore her name. Certainly, his official chronicles overlooked her achievements and blamed her for the turmoil that marked the last years of Jahangir’s reign.
The Mandarin-Language Version
努尔·贾汉的成就遭到漠视有两个原因。其一，历史是由胜利者书写的，而在贾汉吉尔驾崩之后，努尔·贾汉在权力斗争中输给了沙·贾汉。为了把她从历史中抹去，沙·贾汉甚至可能下令撤回所有印有她名字的硬币。显而易见，这位胜利者书写的历史不仅漠视了努尔·贾汉的成就，还把贾汉吉尔在位时期后几年的动乱全归咎于她。
The second reason is that she was a woman, and as such, according to a guide to conduct popular among the Mughal aristocracy, “it were best…not to come into existence, but, being born, she had better be married or be buried.” When Jahangir’s great-aunt wanted to make the haj, his six-year-old brother was told to escort her: even a little boy was man enough to look after the empire’s most senior women.
The Mandarin-Language Version
其二是因为努尔·贾汉的性别，作为女人，根据莫卧儿贵族流行的行为准则，“她最好……别出生，一旦出生，要么死要么赶紧结婚。”贾汉吉尔的伯祖母曾想喊努尔·贾汉六岁的小叔子哈吉陪同她参加社交活动，可见那时连一个小男孩都有资格照顾这个国家最尊贵的女人。
The great-aunt seems to have bridled, and the boy was left behind. And Nur Jahan’s life shows women could soar beyond the harem. Still, both popular myth and serious historiography have conspired to diminish her to a demeaning stereotype, worsened in some Western accounts by Orientalist condescension.
The Mandarin-Language Version
暂且把伯祖母和小叔子放在一边。努尔·贾汉的人生证明了女人大展身手的地方绝不止后宫。但是，无论世俗传说还是严肃史评都将她贬低一等，给她贴上艳后的标签，在研究东方学的傲慢的西方人眼中，她的形象更是一贬再贬。
In filling in the details of Nur Jahan’s life, Ms Lal has not only written a revisionist feminist biography; she has also provided a vivid picture of the Mughal court, with its luxuries, beauties, intrigues and horrors. Moreover, at a time when India’s Hindu-nationalist government chooses to emphasise one strain in the country’s history, she offers a reminder of the diversity of Indian tradition. Nur Jahan was a Shia Muslim, but “married a Sunni king who had a Hindu mother and both Hindu and Muslim wives and concubines.”
The Mandarin-Language Version
在具现努尔·贾汉人生的过程中，除了传记中表现出的修正主义和女权主义色彩之外，拉尔女士还生动形象地描绘了莫卧儿王庭的奢华、美丽、阴谋诡计和恐怖。此外，面对目前印度人民党只强调印度教文化在国家历史中的地位这一现状，拉尔女士一书还提出了对印度传统多样性的思考。要知道努尔·贾汉是什叶派穆斯林，但她却“嫁给了信奉逊尼派的国王，而这位国王有一位信奉印度教的母亲，和一群要么信奉印度教要么信奉伊斯兰教的妻妾。”
Gold-digger: N used to describe a person who has a relationship with someone who is rich in order to get money or expensive things from them.接近有钱人以获得利益者
Take no prisoners: Idiom, literally, to leave nobody alive on a battlefield; by extension, to be utterly ruthless and unyielding in the pursuit of one's goal.不择手段
Revisionist: ADJ to describe somebody who reject traditionally held beliefs about a particular historical event or events. (对历史事件)持修正主义论的; N, 修正主义者
第一段：引出主人公努尔·贾汉
第二段：初步介绍拉尔女士书中努尔·贾汉的功绩
第三、四段：介绍大众对努尔·贾汉认识的偏差，历史对她的不公
第五段：详细介绍努尔·贾汉的功绩，充分展现其值得称赞的智慧和能力
第六、七段：努尔·贾汉功绩遭到漠视的两个原因
第八段：努尔·贾汉的形象不仅受到民间的贬低，还遭到严肃史学的贬低
第九段：对拉尔女士一书意义的思考
“她最好……别出生，一旦出生，要么死要么赶紧结婚。” 莫卧儿社会认为女性的意义在于成为妻子和母亲，后者尤其受到社会尊重，有人称“一个母亲比一千个父亲更受尊重”，例如莫卧儿国王会把隆重的仪式放在母亲寝宫举行，阿巴克国王甚至还亲自为母亲抬轿过河。但女儿的地位十分低下，出生甚至被认为是不吉祥的象征。因为女儿不能为家庭带来收入，中下层人家会选择杀死刚出生的女儿，或者尽量在幼年把她们嫁出去。
“目前印度人民党只强调印度教文化在国家历史中的地位” 印度人民党成立于1980年，宣传印度教意识（Hindutva），它强调印度教文化和印度教传统，目的是建立一个印度教占据主导地位的印度国家。印度人民党领袖、现印度总理莫迪，上台以来秉持的印度教至上的宗教观念、推行的例如屠牛禁令等政令，都进一步加深了印度不同宗教之间的矛盾。
译者Aether，英专大四学生，喜欢翻译和画画。译文不足之处欢迎指正！比心~ ~【邮箱 sjch4141@163.com】
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