At first it had no name. It was the thing itself, the vivid thing. It was his friend. On windy days it danced, demented, waving wild arms, or in the silence of evening drowsed and dreamed, swaying in the blue, the goldeny air. Even at night it did not go away. Wrapped in his truckle bed, he could hear it stirring darkly outside in the dark, all the long night long. There were others, nearer to him, more vivid still than this, they came and went, talking, but they were wholly familiar, almost a part of himself, while it, steadfast and aloof, belonged to the mysterious outside, to the wind and the weather and the goldeny blue air. It was part of the world, and yet it was his friend.
Look, Nicolas, look! See the big tree!
Tree. That was its name. And also: the linden. They were nice words. He had known them a long time before he knew what they meant. They did not mean themselves, they were nothing in themselves, they meant the dancing singing thing outside. In wind, in silence, at night, in the changing air, it changed and yet was changelessly the tree, the linden tree. That was strange.
Everything had a name, but although every name was nothing without the thing named, the thing cared nothing for its name, had no need of a name, and was itself only. And then there were the names that signified no substantial thing, as linden and tree signified that dark dancer. His mother asked him who did he love the best. Love did not dance, nor tap the window with frantic fingers, love had no leafy arms to shake, yet when she spoke that name that named nothing, some impalpable but real thing within him responded as if to a summons, as if it had heard its name spoken. That was very strange.
He soon forgot about these enigmatic matters, and learned to talk as others talked, full of conviction, unquestioningly.
The sky is blue, the sun is gold, the linden tree is green. Day is light, it ends, night falls, and then it is dark. You sleep, and in the morning wake again. But a day will come when you will not wake. That is death. Death is sad. Sadness is what happiness is not. And so on. How simple it all was, after all! There was no need even to think about it. He had only to be, and life would do the rest, would send day to follow day until there were no days left, for him, and then he would go to Heaven and be an angel. Hell was under the ground.
Matthew Mark Luke and John
Bless the bed that I lie on
If I die before I wake
Ask holy God my soul to take
He peered from behind clasped hands at his mother kneeling beside him in the candlelight. Under a burnished coif of coiled hair her face was pale and still, like the face of the Madonna in the picture. Her eyes were closed, and her lips moved, mouthing mutely the pious lines as he recited them aloud. When he stumbled on the hard words she bore him up gently, in a wonderfully gentle voice. He loved her the best, he said. She rocked him in her arms and sang a song.
See saw Margery Daw
This little chicken
Got lost in the straw
最初、それは名前を持たなかった。それはそれそのものであった、色鮮やかなものであった。それは彼の友達であった。風の日、それは腕を荒々しくふりあげ、狂いうねるように踊った。あるいは、静かな夕べに、金色がかった青い空気を揺らし、ぼんやりして夢を見ていた。小さな車輪がついた収納式ベッドの中で布団にくるまれていると、それが外の暗闇の中でそっと揺れているのを彼は夜通し聞くことができた。ほかのものも彼のより近くにあったが、この踊るものよりも鮮やかでしっかりしておいた。そのものたちは話しながら行ったり来たりしたが、全くなじみがあるもので、ほぼ彼自身の一部であった。一方でそれはじっとしておりよそよそしく、風や天気や金色がかった青空といった不可思議な外界に属していた。それは世界の一部であったが、彼の友達でもあった。
見て、ニコラス、見て！あの大きな木を見て！
木。これがその名前であった。シナノキというのもそうであった。素敵な言葉だ。彼はその言葉をそれらが何を意味するか知るずっと前から知っていた。それらはそれら自身を意味しないが、それらはそれら自身何ものでもなく、それらは外で踊ったり歌ったりするものを意味していた。風の中、静けさの中、夜中、変わる大気の中で、それは変化したが、それは変わらずに木、シナノキであった。それは不思議なことであった。
全てのものは名前を持っていた、しかしながら全ての名前は名づけられたものがないとき、なにものでもなかった。ものは自分の名前について気にしていなかったし、名前を持つ必要もなかった。そしてそれはただそのものであった。そしてシナノキや木があの暗闇の中の踊り子を意味するように、実在するものではないものを意味する名前もあった。彼の母は彼に誰が一番好きなのかと尋ねた。好きは踊らないし、指で夢中になって窓を叩かないし、好きは葉があって振れる腕を持たなかった。しかし母が何も示さない名前を口にすると、彼の中にある、実体をもたない本物がなにかがあたかもそれ自身の名前を呼ばれるのを聞いたかのように彼の中で呼びかけにこたえた。それはとても不思議なことであった。
彼はそのうちこれらの謎めいたことを忘れ、他の人が話すように話すことを学んだ。確信を持って、また、疑問も持たないで。
空は青く、太陽は金色で、シナノキは緑だ。昼間は明るく、それが終わると日が落ち、夜がきて、それから暗くなる。寝ると、朝には再び目が覚める。しかし目が覚めない日がいつか来る。それは死というのだ。死は悲しいものだ。悲しいとは幸せでないということだ。などなど。あぁ、つまるところなんて単純なのだろうか！それについて考える必要すらないのだ。彼はただ存在しているだけでよく、人生が後のことを済ませてくれる。人生は最後の一日がなくなるまで一日、また一日と次の日を送りだすのだ、そして彼は天国に行って天使になる。地獄は地面の下にある。
聖マタイ、マルコ、ルカ、ヨハネよ
我が寝所を守りたまえ
目覚める前に息絶えなば
我が魂を救いいだしたまえ
ろうそくの明かりの下で、彼は組んだ手の向こう側に、彼のそばで跪いている母親をじっと見つめた。つやがあり整えられた巻髪の下で、絵画の聖母マリアのように母の顔は青白く静かであった。彼が祈りを声に出して暗唱しているとき彼女の目は閉じられ、唇は動き、聖句を声に出さないで唱えていた。彼が難しい言葉でつまずくと、母は素晴らしく優しい声で穏やかに彼を励ました。彼は彼女が一番好きだと言った。母は彼を抱きかかえ、揺らし、歌を歌った。
ぎったん ばったん マージョリー・ドー
ちいさなひよこが 迷子だぞ
麦藁のなかで 迷子だぞ
It was the first time for me to translate English literary work into Japanese thoroughly and carefully. I enjoyed translating very much, but there were many difficult points in this attempt. I recognized the difference between English and Japanese again.
The mechanism and syntax of Japanese differ from English, so it was impossible for me to translate the excerpt into Japanese as it exactly was in English. Mostly, an English sentence has the subject and the predicate appears immediately after it, but in Japanese the predicate comes at the very last. It was difficult to judge how much I could change the sentence form and make a free translation. The balance between making it understandable in Japanese and keeping the original sentences’ atmosphere was difficult. For example, in Japanese we do not use pronoun as much as in English, and Japanese sentences often elicit the subject. So how to handle the pronouns and subjects of the sentences was a big problem to me. I changed some pronouns to specific for nouns, but I kept pronouns as much as possible. Also, to make sense in Japanese, I sometimes had to shorten the sentences by dividing one long sentence into two.
Also, I felt that this translating exercise gave me a chance to study Japanese language afresh. I realized the unique characteristics of Japanese which I took for granted. In Japanese, the slight difference in wording at the end of a sentence changes its atmosphere greatly. If a sentence ends with “noda”, it differs from “da” or “ta”, and sounds decisive. It needed careful checking and consideration. Also in translating the bedtime prayer I had to check classical Japanese words. I wanted to translate this part in classical Japanese, but it was much more difficult than I had expected. Also, it was difficult to choose the suitable Japanese written form to translate “thing”. In this case, there are three forms to express “mono” (which means thing): katakana, hiragana and kanji. Actually, there is no clear rule to define the meaning of each letter form, but their nuances differ slightly. Katakana is often used to express imported words, so it seems a bit unfamiliar. Hiragana looks the softest, and kanji stiff and materialistic. In this novel, I chose hiragana to show the childlike soft atmosphere.
John Banville