〈通訳〉たちの幕末維新 I can speak Dutch

〈通訳〉たちの幕末維新　(木村直樹さん)

 

著者：木村直樹　 出版社：吉川弘文館　価格：￥ 2,940

 

 

[文]石田祐樹　 [掲載]2012年04月22日

 ■転換する時代を生き抜く力

　嘉永６（１８５３）年６月。浦賀沖にやって来たペリー艦隊に、最初に接触した日本の通訳・堀達之助は「Ｉ　ｃａｎ　ｓｐｅａｋ　Ｄｕｔｃｈ（私はオランダ語を話すことができる）」とまことにみごとな英語で言った――と米国側の記録は記している。
　堀の言葉は、当時の日本の通訳の語学力を端的に示したものだ。英語はわかるが、自由に使いこなせるのはオランダ語である、と。開国と英語の時代へ、大きく転換していくことを予感させる象徴的な一言だ。
　その後、堀は投獄されたり、開成所（のちの東大）教授のまま箱館へ派遣されたりし、明治２７（１８９４）年、７２歳で大阪に没した。
　 この本は、堀をはじめ、幕末維新を生き抜いた長崎のオランダ語通訳（通詞（つうじ））たちの群像を描いている。英語も学び、欧米の思考法を身につけて大審 院院長（今の最高裁長官）になった者や、新政府に仕えた者、活版印刷技術の導入にかかわり印刷業を始めた者……。「肉声を伝える史料が少なくて苦労しまし た」と言うが、記録を突き合わせ、墓地を探すなどの積み重ねが実を結んだ。
　高校時代、ベルリンの壁が崩れるのを見て「国家の枠組みはどう成り立っているのか」と興味を持った。東大史料編纂（へんさん）所の助教となった今は熊本・細川家の文書を活字化する『大日本近世史料』の編集と、自らの研究の「二足のわらじ」を履く。
　「語学だけでなく、技術はどんどん変わり、すぐ使えなくなります。でも、それまでに身につけてきたものと、精神のしなやかさでしのいでいける。何もない時代にここまでやれる人たちがいた、ということを知れば、勇気が出てくると思います」
　　　　◇
　吉川弘文館・２９４０円

a kind of freemasonry/ 省略

讀原野長宵 (今日世界 1964再版) 為什麼要這樣翻譯My Antonia 此書我在40年前台中USIS 沒借讀湯新楣的翻譯還不錯引言特好"里"等不一致
不過小可討論的問題還很多 譬如說第一段末"一種自然間的友情"



LAST summer I happened to be crossing the plains of Iowa in a season of intense heat, and it was my good fortune to have for a traveling companion James Quayle Burden—Jim Burden, as we still call him in the West. He and I are old friends—we grew up together in the same Nebraska town—and we had much to say to each other. While the train flashed through never-ending miles of ripe wheat, by country towns and bright-flowered pastures and oak groves wilting in the sun, we sat in the observation car, where the woodwork was hot to the touch and red dust lay deep over everything. The dust and heat, the burning wind, reminded us of many things. We were talking about what it is like to spend one's childhood in little towns like these, buried in wheat and corn, under stimulating extremes of climate: burning summers when the world lies green and billowy beneath a brilliant sky, when one is fairly stifled in vegetation, in the color and smell of strong weeds and heavy harvests; blustery winters with little snow, when the whole country is stripped bare and gray as sheet-iron. We agreed that no one who had not grown up in a little prairie town could know anything about it. It was a kind of freemasonry, we said.

接下來的翻譯  省略很多(紅色全省去)
When Jim was still an obscure young lawyer, struggling to make his way in New York, his career was suddenly advanced by a brilliant marriage. Genevieve Whitney was the only daughter of a distinguished man. Her marriage with young Burden was the subject of sharp comment at the time. It was said she had been brutally jilted by her cousin, Rutland Whitney, and that she married this unknown man from the West out of bravado. She was a restless, headstrong girl, even then, who liked to astonish her friends. Later, when I knew her, she was always doing something unexpected. She gave one of her town houses for a Suffrage headquarters, produced one of her own plays at the Princess Theater, was arrested for picketing during a garment-makers' strike, etc.
小說
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/242/242-h/242-h.htm

快活快活罷；別相信還早哩。

 胡適日記全集 7: 1934-1939 p.458
1938.1.5
Colonel Newell 家的小石碑上有

Enjoy yourselves, it's later than you think.
( 原文Enjoy yourselves, It's later than you think.)

胡適的譯文刻在背後
他重譯為

 
快活快活罷；別相信還早哩。