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、それに名前はなかった。それはものそのもの、つまり鮮明なものであった。それは彼の友人だった。風の強い日には、それは荒々しく腕をふりまわして狂ったように踊り、静かな夕方には、青色と金色の空気の中で揺れてうとうとしながら夢をみていた。夜になっても、それはいなくならなかった。彼は脚輪つきの低い寝台で毛布にくるまりながら、夜の間ずっと、それがこっそりと外の闇の中で動いているのを耳にしていた。それよりも確かに鮮明で近くに、話しながら行ったり来たりするものたちがいて、それらは身近でほとんど彼自身の一部のようであった。しかし、それの方は揺るぎなく、かつよそよそしくて、神秘的な外の世界、風と天気と金色で青色の空気に属していた。それは世界の一部で、彼の友人だった。
見て、ニコラス、見てごらん！ 大きな木だよ！
木。それが名前だった。さらには、ボダイジュというのも。ふたつとも素敵な言葉だった。何を意味しているかを知るずっと前から、彼はそれらの言葉を知っていた。言葉はそれ自体を意味しているわけではなく、それ自体では何になってもおらず、外で歌って踊っているものを意味していた。風に、静寂に、夜に、そして変わりゆく空気に、それは変化しながらも変わることなく、木であり、ボダイジュの木であった。不思議なことだった。
全てが名前を有していた。しかし、全ての名前は名付けられたものなしでは何ものでもないというのに、ものは名前に気をとめるでもなく、名前を必要ともせず、ただそのものであった。それから、ボダイジュと木が暗闇の踊り子を意味しているように、実体をもたないものを意味する言葉があった。誰のことがいちばん好きなのかしら、と母親は彼に尋ねた。「好き」は、踊りもせず、熱狂的に窓を指で叩きもせず、振るわせる葉のついた腕も持っていなかった。しかし、母親が何もしめさないその名前を口にするとき、触れることはできないが彼の中に確かに存在する何かが反応した。まるで、呼び出しに応じるように、そしてまるで名前が口に出されたのを聞いたかのように。とても不思議なことだった。
彼はすぐにこの謎めいた問題を忘れて、他の人たちと同じように話すことを身につけた。確信に満ちて、疑うこともせずに。
空は青色、太陽は金色、そしてボダイジュは緑色。昼は明るく、終わると夜がおりてきて暗くなる。眠りにつき、朝にはまた目覚める。しかし、目覚めることのない日がいずれやってくる。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だ。それから色々。ものごとは何と簡単なんだろう、まったく！ 考える必要などなかった。彼はただ存在していればよかった。人生はすべてを引き受けてくれて、彼の人生に残された日数がなくなるまで、一日一日を送り届けてくれる。そしてそれから彼は天国へと向かって天使になるだろう。地獄は地下にあった。
マタイ、マルコ、ルカ、ヨハネ
我が寝台を祝福し給え
目覚めぬままに我が身召されば
我が魂を神にとりなし給え
彼は指を組んで合わせた両手のうしろから、蝋燭の光の中で母親がかたわらにひざまずいているのをじっと見つめていた。艶めいた巻毛の下で、彼女の顔は絵画の聖母のように青白く、静かだった。目は閉じられ、唇は動き、彼が暗唱している祈りの言葉を声に出さずに唱えていた。彼が難しい言葉につかえると、彼女は素晴らしく優しい声で彼を励ました。お母さんのことがいちばん好きだよ、と彼は口にした。彼女は腕の中で彼を揺らしながら歌った。
シーソー遊び、マージェリー・ドー
小さなニワトリ、迷子です
麦わらのなか、迷子です
One of the most difficult challenges for me was translating two verses: the prayer for children and the nursery rhyme. First, when I translated the prayer, the problem was which style to choose: a literary style or a more colloquial style. A prayer in literary Japanese gives a solemn impression to readers and is more difficult to recite for children. On the other hand, a prayer in a colloquial style can be easily recited by children. The prayer is probably hard for the young protagonist, because he “stumble[s] on the hard words” when saying the prayer. So, I finally decided to use literary Japanese, such as “我が (waga = mine)” and “給え (tamae = please).” After that, I attempted to repeat same consonants in order to make a prayer more poetical. In the second line, I used three “sh” (/ʃ/) sounds; waga shindaiwo shukufuku shitamae. There are six “m” sounds in the third line, mezamenu mamani wagami mesareba, and three “t” sounds in the fourth line, waga tamashiwo kamini torinashi tamae.
Second, I translated the nursery rhyme by using repetition and the seven- and five-syllable meter. In English, “saw,” “Daw,” and “straw” have rhymed, and I was able to let two of them, “saw” and “Daw,” remain in the Japanese translation. However, it was impossible to rhyme “straw” with them. Therefore, I refrained “迷子です (is lost)” in the second and third line in order to make my translation rhythmical. In addition to this, I used the seven- and five- syllable meter, which is often used in traditional Japanese verses, such as waka and haiku.
Another difficulty was how I should translate the word “love,” which appears in the text three times. The verb “love” can be translated as “愛している” and “好きだ” in Japanese. I chose “好きだ,” because it is more commonly used than “愛している” when parents and young children talk. As Banville uses “love” as a verb, then as a noun, and then as a verb again, I decided to put the word “好き” in Japanese quotation marks (「」) when it is used as a noun because it is a little unusual usage in Japanese. Through this, I hoped to show readers that the same word appeared in the text.
John Banville