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】
先日事件を起こした寄宿生の処分について話し合う職員会議に出席した主人公は、テーブルの向かい側にすわった山嵐とにらみあいになります。
●----------------------------------------------------------
In the afternoon, a meeting of the teachers was going to be held to discuss the question of punishment of those students in the dormitory who offended me the other night. This meeting was a thing I had to attend for the first time in my life, and I was totally ignorant about it. Probably it was where the teachers gathered to blow about their own opinions and the principal bring them to compromise somehow. To compromise is a method used when no decision can be delivered as to the right or wrong of either side. It seemed to me a waste of time to hold a meeting over an affair in which the guilt of the other side was plain as daylight. No matter who tried to twist it round, there was no ground for doubting the facts. It would have been better if the principal had decided at once on such a plain case; he is surely wanting in decision. If all principals are like this, a principal is a synonym of a "dilly-dally."
The meeting hall was a long, narrow room next to that of the principal, and was used for dining room. About twenty chairs, with black leather seat, were lined around a narrow table, and the whole scene looked like a restaurant in Kanda. At one end of the table the principal took his seat, and next to him Red Shirt. All the rest shifted for themselves, but the gymnasium teacher is said always to take the seat farthest down out of modesty. The situation was new to me, so I sat down between the teachers of natural history and of Confucius. Across the table sat Porcupine and Clown. Think how I might, the face of Clown was a degrading type. That of Porcupine was far more charming, even if I was now on bad terms with him. The panel picture which hung in the alcove of the reception hall of Yogen temple where I went to the funeral of my father, looked exactly like this Porcupine. A priest told me the picture was the face of a strange creature called Idaten. To-day he was pretty sore, and frequently stared at me with his fiery eyes rolling. "You can't bulldoze me with that," I thought, and rolled my own in defiance and stared back at him. My eyes are not well-shaped but their large size is seldom beaten by others. Kiyo even once suggested that I should make a fine actor because I had big eyes.
synonym 同義語
dilly-dally ぐずぐずする、のらくらする
alcove アルコーブ（ここでは床の間の意味）
Yogen temple 養源寺
Idaten 韋駄天
bulldoze おどしつける
夏目漱石による原文はこちら。
＊＊＊ 慣用句を覚えよう ＊＊＊
Back（背中）－２
Have ... at one's back
後ろに…が支援（保護）している
have ... on one's back
（荷物を）背負っている、…で苦しめられている
have one's back to [against] the wall
追い詰められている、窮地に陥っている
lie [be] on one's back
病床についている
Mind your back(s)!
ちょっと道をあけてください、どいたどいた!
put one's back into [to] ...
…に身を入れる[全力を挙げる]
scratch someone's back
人に便宜をはかる[よくしてやる]、人に協力する
see the back of ...
…を追い払う、厄介払いする
turn the [one's] back on ...
…を見捨てる、…に背を向ける、…を無視する、…から逃げる
【参考】
▽青空文庫
