「旅日記#1」〜冬来たりなば春遠からじ〜
正確に言えば旅日記ではないんのですが、ヨーロッパでの生活や旅のできごと
など気ままに綴っていければと思っています。古い話も多いのであまり実務的なお役には立たないと思いますが、お付き合いください。
昔は良かった！にならないように気をつけなきゃ。
ヨーロッパに住んでいたのは2002年から2015年。10年以上暮らしていたのでそれなりに一年のサイクルにも慣れてくる。個人的に好きだったのは5月の後半から初夏にかけての時期。風が気持ちよく、日本と違って梅雨もないのでとても爽やか。優しい太陽の光を浴びながらテラスでのんびりと過ごす時間は至高のひとときでした。
一方、いつまで経っても慣れなかったのが冬。11月くらいになると陽が落ちる時間がどんどん早くなる。そして長く、暗く、ジメジメとした冬がやってくるのだ。ヨーロッパで冬にコンサートやオペラなど室内のイベントが増えるのも少しでも陰鬱な気分を減らすための生活の工夫だと思っている。
しかし冬もいつまでも続くわけではない。
陽が落ちるのが早かったのと同じ速さで今度は陽が延びてくる。
そして春の訪れは花と共にやってくる。
3月、イギリスの町の至る所が黄色で埋め尽くされる。
咲いているのはラッパスイセン(daffodils)
ロンドンならバッキンガム宮殿周辺のグリーンパークやセントジェームスパークがおすすめ。郊外に足を伸ばすならキューガーデン。
さあ、冬が終わった、町に出よう！
という空気が町中に充満し始めるこの季節が大好きでした。
「冬来りなば春遠からじ」
中国の古事だとずっと思っていたんですが
イギリスの詩人シェリーの「西風に寄せる歌」の
最後の一節でした。
まさに今の季節のイギリスにぴったりな気がします。
せっかくなので全文引用してみます。
Ⅰ
O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill;
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, O hear!
Ⅱ
Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Manad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: O hear!
Ⅲ
Thou who didst waken from his summer-dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baia's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!
Ⅳ
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! if even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seem'd a vision?I would ne'er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd
One too like thee?tameless, and swift, and proud.
V
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own?
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,
Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth;
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?