小説を読みながら、語彙を増やしましょう。
夏目漱石の小説『坊っちゃん』の原文と毛利八十太郎が英訳した “Botchan (Master Darling)” を併せて見ていきます。
【あらすじ】
赴任先の中等学校での初日、主人公は面倒な辞令の手続きや校長の長話にうんざりさせられます。
●----------------------------------------------------------
I had had vague idea of the direction of the school as I rode to it the previous day, so turning two or three corners, I came to the front gate. From the gate to the entrance the walk was paved with granite. When I had passed to the entrance in the rikisha, this walk made so outlandishly a loud noise that I had felt coy. On my way to the school, I met a number of the students in uniforms of cotton drill and they all entered this gate. Some of them were taller than I and looked much stronger. When I thought of teaching fellows of this ilk, I was impressed with a queer sort of uneasiness. My card was taken to the principal, to whose room I was ushered at once. With scant mustache, dark-skinned and big-eyed, the principal was a man who looked like a badger. He studiously assumed an air of superiority, and saying he would like to see me do my best, handed the note of appointment, stamped big, in a solemn manner. This note I threw away into the sea on my way back to Tokyo. He said he would introduce me to all my fellow teachers, and I was to show to each one of them the note of appointment. What a bother! It would be far better to stick this note up in the teachers' room for three days instead of going through such a monkey process.
The teachers would not be all in the room until the bugle for the first hour was sounded. There was plenty of time. The principal took out his watch, and saying that he would acquaint me particularly with the school by-and-bye, he would only furnish me now with general matters, and started a long lecture on the spirit of education. For a while I listened to him with my mind half away somewhere else, but about half way through his lecture, I began to realize that I should soon be in a bad fix. I could not do, by any means, all he expected of me. He expected that I should make myself an example to the students, should become an object of admiration for the whole school or should exert my moral influence, besides teaching technical knowledge in order to become a real educator, or something ridiculously high-sounding.
walk 歩道、遊歩道
granite みかげ石
outlandishly 奇怪な、異様な
coy 恥ずかしがりの、はにかみ屋の
cotton drill 雲斎織(原文では小倉織)
ilk 同じ、同類
scant 乏しい、貧弱な
badger アナグマ(原文では狸)
studiously 熱心に、…したがって
assume an air of superiority 偉そうにする
monkey process ばかげた手順
bugle らっぱ
acquaint with 熟知させる
in a bad fix 困りきる
exert はたらかせる、発揮する
high-sounding 仰々しい、大げさな
夏目漱石による原文は
こちら。
*** 慣用句を覚えよう ***
Pig(豚)
bleed like a (stuck) pig
多量に出血する
bring [drive] one's pigs to a fine [a pretty, the wrong] market
売り損をする、やまがはずれる
drive one's pigs to market
大いびきをかく
buy a pig in a poke
品物を見もしないで(その価値も知らずに)買う、安請合いする
make a pig of oneself
欲張る、大食する
sweat like a pig
大汗をかく
make a pig's ear (out) of…
…を台無しにする、しくじる
in a [the] pig's eye [ear, ass]
決して…しない、とんでもない
go to pigs and whistle
道楽をする
pig in the middle
板ばさみになっている人
pighead
頑固者、石頭、強情っぱり
【参考】
▽
青空文庫