小説を読みながら、語彙を増やしましょう。
今回からは、夏目漱石の小説『坊っちゃん』を毛利八十太郎が英訳した “Botchan (Master Darling)” と漱石による原文を併せて見ていきます。
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Because of an hereditary recklessness, I have been playing always a losing game since my childhood. During my grammar school days, I was once laid up for about a week by jumping from the second story of the school building. Some may ask why I committed such a rash act. There was no particular reason for doing such a thing except I happened to be looking out into the yard from the second floor of the newly-built school house, when one of my classmates, joking, shouted at me; "Say, you big bluff, I'll bet you can't jump down from there! O, you chicken-heart, ha, ha!" So I jumped down. The janitor of the school had to carry me home on his back, and when my father saw me, he yelled derisively, "What a fellow you are to go and get your bones dislocated by jumping only from a second story!"
"I'll see I don't get dislocated next time," I answered.
One of my relatives once presented me with a pen-knife. I was showing it to my friends, reflecting its pretty blades against the rays of the sun, when one of them chimed in that the blades gleamed all right, but seemed rather dull for cutting with.
"Rather dull? See if they don't cut!" I retorted.
"Cut your finger, then," he challenged. And with "Finger nothing! Here goes!" I cut my thumb slant-wise. Fortunately the knife was small and the bone of the thumb hard enough, so the thumb is still there, but the scar will be there until my death.
hereditary 遺伝（性）の、遺伝的な
recklessness 無謀さ、むこうみず
play a losing game 損なことをする
grammar school 初等中学校
be laid up （病気やけがで）動けなくなる
rash act 軽率な行為
bluff からいばり
chicken-heart いくじなし
janitor 用務員
derisively あざけるように
dislocated 脱臼した、関節がはずれた
see （必ず…するように）気をつける
present with 与える
chime in 話に加わる
slant-wise 斜めに
夏目漱石による原文はこちら。
＊＊＊ 慣用句を覚えよう ＊＊＊
Horse（馬）
a horse of another (a different) color
まったく別の事柄
back [bet on] the wrong horse
負け馬に賭ける、弱い方を支持する、判断を誤る
→ back the right horse で逆の意味になる
change horses in midstream
仕事の途中で人や計画を変える
flog [beat, mount on] a dead horse
済んだ問題について論議する、むだ骨を折る
hold one’s horses
我慢する、落ちつく
look a gift horse in the mouth
もらい物のあらを探す、人の親切（好意）にけちをつける
be on [get on, mount, ride] one’s high horse
いばる、人を見下した態度をとる、腹を立てる、機嫌をそこねる
→ come [get] (down) off one’s high horse で逆の意味になる
eat a man off a horse
（馬のように）大食いする
【参考】
▽青空文庫
