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It's snowing.

雪がちらついていて、寒い一日になりそうです。

Robert Frost の詩です。

"All poetry is a reproduction of the tones of actual speech." というフロストの言葉どおり、詩は、声に出して何度も読んで味わうものと思っています。

彼の詩集"New Hampshire"からです。私が始めてフロストに触れたのはこの詩です。

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.


英詩の時間にMs. Phillips が最初に取り上げた題材でした。易しい言葉、目に浮かぶ情景、きれいな韻の踏み方、英詩入門にぴったりです。
季節感からいうとクリスマス、ないし冬至の頃なのだと思いますが、冬の森の小道を抜け、目的地に向かう情景が目に浮かびます。
中学で習わない単語は、queer 位でしょう。

30年前には、気にも留めませんでしたが

He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

という二行で思わず、立ち止まります。

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

この終わりの4行は、シンプルですが美しいと感じます。

もう一つ、詩集"Mountain Interval"からです。

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.


こちらの詩の方が先に書かれています。
30年以上前に初めて読んだフロストの詩です。
30年以上、自分が来た道を振り返り、この先30年の命なぞ望むべくもないことを知りつつ、思いは変わらない。
頚木はきつくなり、我が身の力の程も余程解っているのに。

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

人生折り返したがゆえ、この三行が身に沁みます。

Lowell George のドラッグ・ソングなんかよりずっと心に沁みます。
逆に、あの時代は何だったのか。あの後、本当は何が起こっているのか。
by nk24mdwst | 2008-01-26 11:48 | Poetry


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