石头果然答道：“我师何必太痴！
'Come, your reverence,' said the stone (for Vanitas had been correct in assuming that it could speak) ‘must you be so obtuse?”
若云无朝代可考，今我师竟假借汉唐等年纪添缀，又有何难?
“If there's no way of finding out the date, you can easily ascribe this tale to some time in the Han or Tang Dynasty.
市井俗人喜看理治之书者甚少，爱看适情闲文者特多。
Besides, most common people of the market-place much prefer light literature to improving books.
况且那野史中，或讪谤君相，或贬人妻女，奸淫凶恶，不可胜数；更有一种风月笔墨，其淫秽污臭，最易坏人子弟。
The trouble is that so many romances contain slanderous anecdotes about sovereigns and ministers or cast aspersions upon other men's wives and daughters so that they are packed with sex and violence.
更有一种风月笔墨，其淫污秽臭，屠毒笔墨，坏人子弟，又不可胜数。
Even worse are those writers of the breeze-and-moonlight school, who corrupt the young with pornography and filth.
至若佳人才子等书，则又千部共出一套，且其中终不能不涉于淫滥，以致满纸潘安、子建，西子、文君，不过作者要写出自己的那两首情诗艳赋来，故假拟出男女二名姓，又必旁出一小人其间拨乱，亦如剧中之小丑然。
“The trouble with this last kind of romance is that it only gets written in the first place because the author requires a framework in which to show off his love-poems.He goes about constructing this framework quite mechanically, beginning with the names of his pair of young lovers and invariably adding a third character, a servant or the like, to make mischief between them, like the chou in a comedy.
且鬟婢开口即者也之乎，非文即理。
and makes even the slave girls talk pedantic nonsense.
故逐一看去，悉皆自相矛盾、大不近情理之说，竟不如我半世亲睹亲闻的这几个女子，虽不敢说强似前代书中所有之人，但事迹原委，亦可以消愁破闷；也有几首歪诗熟词，可以喷饭供酒。
So all these novels are full of contradictions and absurdly unnatural. “Much better are the girls I have known myself during my young days.I wouldn't presume to rank them as superior to all the characters of earlier works, yet their stories may serve to dispel boredom and care while the few doggerels I have inserted may raise a laugh and add zest to wine.
至若离合悲欢，兴衰际遇，则又追踪蹑迹，不敢稍加穿凿，徒为供人之目而反失其真传者。
'All that my story narrates, the meetings and partings, the joys and sorrows, the ups and downs of fortune, are recorded exactly as they happened.
I have not dared to add the tiniest bit of touching-up, for fear of losing the true picture.
今之人，贫者日为衣食所累，富者又怀不足之心，纵一时稍闲，又有贪淫恋色、好货寻愁之事，那里有工夫去看那理治之书?
“At present the daily concern of the poor is food and clothing, while the rich are never satisfied.All their leisure is taken up with amorous adventures, material acquisition or trouble-making.What time do they have to read political and moral treatises?”
所以我这一段事，也不愿世人称奇道妙，也不要世人喜悦检读，只愿他们当那醉饱淫卧之时，或避世去愁之际，把此一玩，岂不省了些寿命筋力？
I neither want people to marvel at this story of mine, nor do I insist that they should read it for pleasure; I only hope they may find distraction here when they are sated with food and wine or searching for some escape from worldly cares.By glancing over it in place of other vain pursuits, they may save their energies and prolong their lives,
就比那谋虚逐妄，却也省了口舌是非之害，腿脚奔忙之苦。
sparing themselves the harm of quarrels and arguments, or the trouble of chasing after what is illusory.
再者，亦令世人换新眼目，不比那些胡牵乱扯，忽离忽遇，满纸才人淑女，子建、文君，红娘、小玉等通共熟套之旧稿。
“Besides, this story offers readers something new, unlike those hackneyed and stale hodge-podges of sudden partings and encounters which teem with talented scholars and lovely girls Cao Zijian, Zhuo Wenjun, Hongniang, Xiaoyu and the like.
空空道人听了此语，思忖半晌，将这《石头记》再细阅一遍，因见上面虽有指奸责佞，贬恶诛邪之语，亦非伤时骂世之旨；及至君仁臣良，父慈子孝，凡伦常所关之处，皆萆称功颂德，眷眷无穷，实非别书可比。
The Reverend Void thought it over, then carefully reread The Tale of the Stone.He found in it both condemnation of treachery and criticism of flattery and evil, but it was clearly not written to pass censure on the times.Moreover it surpassed other books in its voluminous accounts of benevolent princes, good ministers, kind fathers and filial sons, and all matters pertaining to proper human relations, as well as eulogies of virtuous deeds.
虽其中大旨谈情，亦不过实录其事，又非假拟妄称，一味淫邀艳约、私订偷盟之可比。
Although the main theme was love, it was simply a true record of events, superior to those sham meretricious works devoted to licentious assignations and dissolute escapades.
从此空空道人因空见色，由色生情，传情入色，自色悟空， 遂易名为情僧，改《石头记》为《情僧录》。
Since all manifestations are born of nothingness and in turn give rise to passion, by describing passion for what is manifest we comprehend nothingness.
So the Taoist changed his name to the Passionate Monk and changed the title of the book from The Tale of the Stone to the Record of the Passionate Monk.
东鲁孔梅溪则题曰《风月宝鉴》。
Kong Meixi of eastern Lu6 suggested the title Precious Mirror of Love.
后因曹雪芹于悼红轩中，披阅十载，增删五次，纂成目录，分出章回，又题曰《金陵十二钗》，并题一绝。
Cao Xueqin in his Nostalgia Studio worked on it for ten years, in the course of which he rewrote it no less than five times, dividing it into chapters, composing chapter headings, renaming it The Twelve Beauties of Jinling, and adding an introductory quatrain.
Red Ink stone restored the original title when he recopied the book and added his second set of annotations to it.
都云作者痴，谁解其中味？
All men call the author fool; None his secret message hears.
出则既明，且看石上是何故事。
Now that the origin of the story is clear, let us see what was recorded on the Stone.
按那石上书云： 当日地陷东南，这东南一隅有处曰姑苏，有城曰阊门， 最是红尘中一二等富贵风流之地。
This is how the inscription began: Long, long ago the world was tilted downwards towards the south-east; and in that lower-lying south-easterly part of the earth there is a city called Soochow; and in Soochow the district around the Chang-men Gate is reckoned one of the two or three wealthiest and most fashionable quarters in the world of men.
这阊门外有个十里街，街内有个仁清巷，巷内有个古庙，因地方狭窄，人皆呼作“葫芦庙”。
Outside this Changmen Gate was a certain Ten-li Street, off which ran the Lane of Humanity and Purity; and in this lane stood an old temple, which being built in such a narrow space was known from its shape as Gourd Temple.
家中虽不甚富贵，然本地便也推他为望族了。
Although neither very rich nor noble, their family was highly regarded in that locality.
甄士隐梦幻识通灵 贾雨村风尘怀闺秀
Zhen Shiyin in a Dream Sees the Jade of Spiritual Understanding Jia Yucun in His Obscurity Is Charmed by a Maid