忘却からの帰還〜Atomic Age

Nevil Shute:"On the Beach"を原作とする"On the Beach" [<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Beach-Bryan-Brown/dp/B0007N1...">DVD/Amazon</a>, 2000]のエンディングにちらっと引用されているのが、Walt Whitmanの詩"On the beach at night"である。

希望を絶たれてしまった後の淡々とした描写を思いつつ、全文をながめると、より一層、悲しい気分になる。

全文は...

Walt Whitman: On the Beach at Night

On the beach at night,
Stands a child with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.

Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky,
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter,
And nigh at hand, only a very little above,
Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades.

From the beach the child holding the hand of her father,
Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all,
Watching, silently weeps.

Weep not, child,
Weep not, my darling,
With these kisses let me remove your tears,
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in
apparition,
Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the
Pleiades shall emerge,
They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall
shine out again,
The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure,
The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall
again shine.

Then dearest child mournest thou only for jupiter?
Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?

Something there is,
(With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper,
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)
Something there is more immortal even than the stars,
(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter
Longer than sun or any revolving satellite,
Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.


夜の渚に
少女は父親と佇み、
東の彼方、秋の空を眺めている。

暗闇の彼方に、
貪欲な雲が、埋葬の雲が、黒き塊を広げ
低く陰鬱に、ゆるぎなく空を横切り、沈み、
東に残るエーテルの透き通り明るい帯から、
大いなる平穏の主星、木星が昇り、
そして、そのすぐ近く、ほんの少し上を
繊細なる姉妹、プレアデスが泳ぐ。

少女は父の手を握り締め、渚から
すべてを飲み込むように垂れこめる雲を
見守りながら泣いている。

泣くな、子よ。
なくな、我が愛するものよ。
この口づけで涙をぬぐおう。
貪欲な雲の勝利は長くは続かない。
彼らは空を長く占領することはない。彼らが星を貪るのは幻の中のこと。
木星が姿を現すから、辛抱して、空を見よう。プレアデスが姿を現すから。
星々は不滅だ。銀の星も金の星も、すべての星々は再び輝く。
大きな星々も、小さな星々も再び輝く。星々は耐える。
偉大なる不滅の太陽たちと、思慮深き月たちも、再び輝く。

最愛の子、汝は木星のためにだけ嘆き悲しむのか？
埋葬されし星々をひとり思うのか？

何かがある。
（汝を心を宥める私の唇で、私はささやく
私は汝にひとつめの暗示を、問いとかけと遠まわしな形で）
星々よりも不滅なるものがある。
（多く人々が埋葬され、多くの昼と夜が過ぎ去っても）
輝ける木星よりも長く、生きるものがある。
太陽や、巡る衛星たちよりも長く、輝けるプレアデスの姉妹たちよりも長く。

<

一方、Nevil Shuteの原作にはT.S. Eliotの"The Hollow Men"の一節が引用されている[訳は井上勇氏による"渚にて"訳本より]：

このいやはての集いの場所に
われら　ともどもに手さぐりつ
言葉もなくて
この潮満つる渚につどう・・・・・

かくて世の終わり来たりぬ
かくて世の終わり来たりぬ
かくて世の終わり来たりぬ
地軸くずれるとどろきもなく　ただひそやかに
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Ｔ・Ｓ・エリオット


In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river・・・

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　T. S. Eliot</blockquote>

全文は...

T. S. Eliot: The Hollow Men

Mistah Kurtz-he dead.

A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us?if at all?not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer?

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

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