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
はじめそれには名前がなかった。それはもの自体、鮮明なもの自体だった。それは彼の友達だった。風が吹く日には、気がふれたように、腕を荒々しく腕を揺らして踊り、静かな夕べには、青い、黄金色がかった空気の中で揺れながら、まどろんで夢を見ていた。夜になっても、それは立ち去ることがなかった。車輪付きのベッドの中で毛布にくるまりながら、彼は、長い夜の間じゅう、それが外の暗闇の中でうごめいている音を聞くことができた。彼のもっと近くには、他のものたちもいて、そのものたちはもっと鮮明で、行ったりきたり、話をしたりしていた。けれどそのものたちがすべて、親しい、ほとんど彼の一部であるようなものだったのに対して、それは、不動で超然としていて、神秘的な外部、風や、荒々しい天気や、黄金色がかった青い空気に属していた。それは世界の一部であり、けれど彼の友達だった。
ごらん、ニコラス、ごらん！大きな木だよ！
木だ。それが、それの名前だった。そしてまた、それはリンデンだった。どれもすてきな言葉たちだった。彼はそれらが何を意味するかを知るずっと前に、それらの言葉を知っていた。それらは、それ自体を意味することなく、それ自体では何ものでもなく、外で踊り歌うあの存在のことを意味していた。風の中で、沈黙の中で、夜に、変化する空気の中で、それは変化しながらも、変化しようもなく木で、リンデンだった。おかしなことだった。
すべてのものには名前があり、すべての名前は名付けられたものなしには何ものでもないのに、名付けられたものは、自分の名前について何も気にすることはなく、名前を必要ともせず、ただそれ自体であった。そして、実体の伴わない何かを指す名前というものもあるのである。リンデンと木が、あの夜の中の踊り子を指すように。彼の母親は、彼にだれを一番愛しているのと尋ねた。愛は、踊ることもなく、狂ったように窓を指で叩くこともなく、葉っぱの茂った腕を揺らすこともない。それなのに、彼女がその何も名付けることのない名前を口にしたとき、彼の中の、触れることのできない、けれどそこに確かにある本当のものが、まるで呼び出しにでも応じるかのように、反応したのだった。まるで自分の名前が口にされるのを耳にしたかのように。とてもおかしなことだった。
彼はすぐにその謎めいたものたちのことを忘れてしまい、他の人たちがするように、確信をもって、疑うことなく話すことを覚えた。
空は青く、太陽は金色で、リンデンバウムは緑だ。昼は明るく、それは終わり、夜が更け、そうするとあたりは暗くなる。眠り、朝になるとまた目覚める。でも目覚めない日がいつかやってくる。それが死だ。死は悲しい。悲しみとは、幸せではないもののことである。ほかにもいろいろ。なんだ、なんて簡単なことなんだろう！ そのことについて考える必要さえなかった。彼はそこにいるだけでよく、あとは人生がすべてをしてくれて、彼のために、残りがなくなるまで一日一日を送り出してくれ、それが終われば彼は天国へ行って天使になるのだ。地獄とは地面の下にあるもののことだった。
マタイ、マルコ、ルカ、ヨハネ
わたしのねどこを おまもりください。
もしもわたしが めざめなければ
かみさまのもとへ おつれください。
ろうそくの炎の中で、彼は組んだ手の後ろから、隣にひざまづいている母親の姿をじっと見つめた。磨き上げられたようなぴかぴかの巻き毛のベールの下で、彼女の顔は青白く、動きがなく、絵の中の聖母マリアのようだった。瞳は閉じられ、唇は動かず、彼が唱える祈りの文句を、声に出さずにつぶやいていた。彼が難しい言葉でつっかえると、彼女は驚くほど優しい声で、彼を優しく励ました。彼はお母さんのことを一番愛しているよと言った。彼女は彼を腕の中で揺らして、歌を歌った。
ぎっこん ばったん マージョリー・ドー
小さなにわとり まいご
わらの中で まいご
Comment on Doctor Copernicus
Translating the excerpt of Doctor Copernicus asks us to be more aware of the strategies Banville employs in narrative than as mere readers. Focusing on the text on the word level reveals the inseparability of form and content in Banville’s writing.
The frequent use of pronouns, “it,” they” and “he,” in the excerpt were one of the hurdles on translation. They are a part of narratological strategies, in which Banville makes the familiar world unfamiliar to readers by cutting off the names from objects, and therefore the translation should aim at the same defamiliarizing effect. Translating the pronouns into Japanese was particularly difficult since in our language “it” and “they” looks and sounds similar (「それ (sore)」「それら (sorera)」). I attempted to prevent confusion by making distinctions among these pronouns—for instance, by strictly translating “it” to “それ” and “they” to “そのものたち” in the first paragraph—, but it seemed the translated version did not work so well as the original, in which the readers could instantly recognize both anonymity and referentiality of the pronouns.
The two poetic texts at the end of the excerpt were also challenging. I found it interesting that they were both poems for children, the one a prayer for children and the other a nursery rhyme, and therefore I wanted the readers to note the sense of nostalgia and innocence these quotations give. For this purpose, I added some poetic devices. Instead of the rhyming, I used some repetitions for the nursery rhyme, and reiterated the last word “まいご” which means “got lost” to make it rhythmic. Since different characters are available in Japanese—simple characters (hiragana) and Chinese characters (kanji)—, I tried to use hiragana when possible. For instance, I preferred “かみさま” to “神様” when I translated “holy God” to Japanese, since hiragana seems to have the resonance of children’s literature as the original text does.
Translating Doctor Copernicus made us sensitive to the author’s choice of words as well as features of the words and grammatical properties in English language. It also made us recognize our language’s own characteristics.
John Banville