Golden Key 1.02

ある晩、夏では、彼は自分の部屋に帰って格子窓の前立って、そして妖精の国の外れに縁のあった林を眺めました。　その林は大叔母さんの庭まで続いて、そして、確かに、庭の中にあるまばらな木が入ってきました。東には林が置いてて、そして太陽は、小屋の後ろに沈んでいるところで、目の高さの赤い目で真っ直ぐにその暗い林に見えました。木は全部古くて下のほうには枝があまりなかったから太陽がかなりの距離まで林の中に見えました。　そしてその少年は、鋭い目をしてたから、太陽とほぼ同じ距離が見えました。　林の幹は赤い太陽の輝きで赤い柱のように並んでて、そして彼は消えていく遥かの通路も通路も見る事が出来ました。　それから木は彼の為に待ってた感じが感じる事が始まりながら林を眺めてた。　木が先に進む事も出来ないほど彼が会いに来るまで待っていたそうでした。　でもかれはお腹すいて晩御飯ほしかったんでした。　だから彼は居残りました。

One evening, in summer, he went into his own room and stood at the lattice-window, and gazed into the forest which fringed the outskirts of Fairyland. It came close up to his great-aunt’s garden, and, indeed, sent some straggling trees into it. The forest lay to the east, and the sun, which was setting behind the cottage, looked straight into the dark wood with his level red eye. The trees were all old, and had few branches below, so that the sun could see a great way into the forest and the boy, being keen-sighted, could see almost as far as the sun. The trunks stood like rows of red columns in the shine of the red sun, and he could see down aisle after aisle in the vanishing distance. And as he gazed into the forest he began to feel as if the trees were all waiting for him, and had something they could not go on with till he came to them. But he was hungry and wanted his supper. So he lingered.

Golden Key 1.01

「誰かは見つかったことあると知っているの」少年は聞いた、ある晩です。
「うん。あなたのお父さん、私はそう信じる、見つかった。」
「お父さんはキーには何をした、教えてくれない？」
「彼は決して私に何も伝えなかった」
「キーはどんな形してたの」
「彼は決して私に見せてくれなかったよ」
「新しいキーはいつもどういうふうにそこに現れるの」
「知らないよ。ただそこにあるよ。」
「たぶん虹の卵だ」
「たぶんそうね。巣を見つかったら嬉しい子になるよ」
「たぶん虹で空から倒れてくるんだ」
「たぶんそうしているわね」

“Did you ever know anybody to find it?” he asked, one evening.
“Yes. Your father, I believe, found it.”
“And what did he do with it, can you tell me?”
“He never told me.”
“What was it like?”
“He never showed it to me.”
“How does a new key come there always?”
“I don’t know. There it is.”
“Perhaps it is the rainbow’s egg.”
“Perhaps it is. You will be a happy boy if you find the nest.”
“Perhaps it comes tumbling down the rainbow from the sky.”
“Perhaps it does.”

Golden Key 1.00

この金色の鍵のバージョンはもともと原本の１８６７版です。
著作権が切れた状態にあるので今公有です。

黄昏のなかである子が座りながら大叔母さんからおとぎ話をよく聞きました。
虹の先が地面に接するところを見つかったらそこで彼はゴールデンキーを見つけられると彼女は言いました。
「で鍵は何の為？」少年は聞きました。「鍵は何のものの鍵ですか？何が開けられるんですか？」
「それはだれも知らないことです、」彼の叔母さんは答えました。「見つかった人はこれを使うべきかを分かるようにならなきゃなりません」
「きっと、金であって」少年は一度言い、深く考えて、「もし売ったら沢山のお金が得ることが出来そう。」
「売るよりけっして見つからないほうがいい」叔母が答えました。
そして少年は就寝してゴールデンキーの夢を見ました。
もし叔母さんの小さな家は妖精の国のふちになかったなら今までゴールデンキーについて大叔母さんから聞かせた事は意味を成さないものばかりだったかもしれないけどそうじゃないでした。　完璧によく知られていたことなんだけど妖精の国以外だれも虹の先が見つかる事が出来ません。　ある生き物は自分のゴールデンキーを大事にしていつもひらひら飛び回っていて誰かは鍵を見つかることが出来ないようにしています。　でも妖精の国のなかにはかなり違います。　この国には現実とは見える物は妖精の国にはとても薄く見えるけどこの国にはじっと立つことが出来ない物はそこにぜんぜん動きません。　だから、甥には叔母ちゃんがそんなゴールデンキーについて述べた事は少しも不合理なことじゃないでした。

This version of The Golden Key is from the original 1867 edition. Its copyright has since fallen into the public domain.

There was a boy who used to sit in the twilight and listen to his great-aunt’s stories. She told him that if he could reach the place where the end of the rainbow stands he would find there a golden key.
“And what is the key for?” the boy would ask. “What is it the key of? What will it open?”
“That nobody knows,” his aunt would reply. “He has to find that out.”
“I suppose, being gold,” the boy once said, thoughtfully, “that I could get a good deal of money for it if I sold it.”
“Better never find it than sell it,” returned his aunt.
And the boy went to bed and dreamed about the golden key.
Now all that his great-aunt told the boy about the golden key would have been nonsense, had it not been that their little house stood on the borders of Fairyland. For it is perfectly well known that out of Fairyland nobody ever can find where the rainbow stands. The creature takes such good care of its golden key, always flitting from place to place, lest any one should find it! But in Fairyland it is quite different. Things that look real in this country look very thin indeed in Fairyland, while some of the things that here cannot stand still for a moment, will not move there. So it was not in the least absurd of the old lady to tell her nephew such things about the golden key.

The Golden Key 0.00 Introduction

Since I haven't been able to come up with enough stuff that I am willing to post here on a consistent basis, I have come up with something of a project. I am going to try and translate The Golden Key by George MacDonald into Japanese. I will begin my work alone, but will credit any of my Japanese friends who deign to help me in the process. The Golden Key is a short story with only 17 pages of text, but the story blows my mind every time I read it. I would recommend it to everyone as a must read that won't take much time to read.

As a bit of a trivia though, I think I must introduce George MacDonald. He was a writer of fantasy whose writings had a strong enough influence on C.S. Lewis to gain him the immortal position of Lewis's otherworldly guide in The Great Divorce and to gain the honor of having an anthology compiled under C.S. Lewis's scrutinous eye. Additionally, George MacDonald was also a friend of a certain author who wrote under the pen name Lewis Carrol. The extreme ability of these two authors in writing of wonderous fantasy worlds is on the same level of such great books as The Lord of the Rings and Narnia. I recommend that those who are interested in knowing more read MacDonald's Lilith in which I am quite certain Edgar Allen Poe found his inspiration for his poem The Raven, which is quite recently quoted "nevermore".

I would recommend these books of George MacDonald's.
(note:some of which you can find on librivox.org)
The Princess and the Goblin
The Princess and Curdie
The Light Princess
The Lost Princess (AKA The Wise Woman: A parable) *A must read*
Phantastes
Lilith

The last two are examples of MacDonald's adult fiction which are a little heavier read than the other stories.

省略：　とにかくこれからジョージマクドナルドの小説を日本語に翻訳しようとするんだ。　　話は十七枚だけで短いけど物凄くいい話だよ。
ジョージマクドナルドはまだ知らない人のためにちょっとの紹介をしようと思っている。　マクドナルドさんは基本的にファンタジーの作家なんだけど彼が書いたことは二つの種類に分けることが出来るんだよ。　それは子供のファンタジーと大人っぽいファンタジーだ。　こういう場合には大人っぽいファンタジーは基本的に子供のファンタジーっぽいけどテーマはもっと複雑だし単語ももっと難しいしそれとも恐ろしいことも起こるよ。　
この二つのスタイルの中にはザゴールデンキーは子供のファンタジーだけどこの様な話の作り方が想像できないほど深い意味が含まれている。　僕は三回以上読んだけどまだ理解出来ないことがあるから何回も読んだら飽きないよ。　　さ、この紹介のせいで読んでみりん。　　＾＿＾

A key Revolution

The time has come... for me to start writing in here again.

Yes, I know that I am coming across as an erratic writer or quite possibly a disfunctional one. However, that is not something I intend to change. The seeming chaotic wanderlust that my personality reflects is an inherent conjuction to my meaningingless pursuit of being a Jack of all Trades. Instead, my focus has slowly shifted into a holy box that justifies and without alteration has redifined my goals. I no longer crave an impossible expertise in the many skills that compose my life while at the same time I maintain my fixation with flexibility. My life experience rests on living for the life of all.

The key to my future rests in an abandonment into hands of greater power than my own.

In hopes that I will never revert to my old mindset, my sight has been changed. Instead of seeing a future death for the instillation of fear into my motives, I now see only the future of life to be had and the missed opportunies to live that I will not allow to pass untouched. The samurai spirit is strong and quite good for this world but it has overlooked one thing. When one dwells on death as a complete and total end, hope suffocates. I must always remember that the only thing to look forward to beyond the end of time is more life, not less.

No more piddling fires. Let it burn with a passion hotter than a thousand suns.
Set the world ablaze.