Samuel Fergusonサミュエル・ファーガソン / 1810-86

詩人・作家・ケルト語学者。ベルファースト (Belfast) に生まれ、アントリム (Co. Antrim) に育つ。Belfast Academical Institution でアイルランド語を、ロンドンの Lincoln’s Inn で法律を学び、1834年にトニティ・カレッジ (TCD) に入学。1832年、職人の労働と技能を称える詩 ‘The Forging of the Anchor’ が Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine に掲載される。

 

1834年、James Hardiman 編纂のゲール語翻訳詩集 Irish Minstrelsy (1831) について、誤ったナショナリズムを呈していると批判する記事を Dublin University Magazine に4回に分けて投稿。そこではオリジナルの詩がもつ ‘savage sincerity’ を散文で解説し、また自ら翻訳し、彼の考えるアイルランド詩のもつ特徴を示した。これらゲール語の詩の研究は、1834年に Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine に掲載されたファーガソンの詩で、取替え子の伝統を基にした ‘The Fairy Thorn’ に反映されている。

 

Royal Irish Academy の校長として、熱心にアイルランドの初期芸術・文化の研究を奨励した。詩集に Lays of the Western Gael (1865)、Congal (1872)、Poems (1880)、The Forging of the Anchor (1883) がある。 (N. M.)

Irish poet, writer of fiction and scholar, born and raised in Belfast and in Co. Antrim. He studied Irish at the Belfast Academical Institution and law at Lincoln’s Inn in London before enrolling at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1834. His poem celebrating labour and craftsmanship, ‘The Forging of the Anchor’, appeared in the Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine in 1832.

 

In 1834, he contributed to the Dublin University Magazine a series of four review articles on James Hardiman’s Irish Minstrelsy (1831), criticizing fanatical and malignant nationalism. Ferguson illustrated the ‘savage sincerity’ of the originals in literal prose versions, and then showed what he considered the characteristics of Irish poetry to be through his own verse translations. The impact of these researches into Gaelic verses was reflected in ‘The Fairy Thorn’, a poem about a changeling based on the traditions of the sídh, which appeared in the Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine in 1834.

 

Elected President of the Royal Irish Academy, Ferguson labored tirelessly to raise the awareness of ancient Irish culture. His collections of poems include Lays of the Western Gael (1865), Congal (1872), Poems (1880), and The Forging of the Anchor (1883).      (N. M.)

原詩(PDF)

  • 1. The Fairy Thorn
  • 2. The Forester’s Complaint
  • 3. The Forging of the Anchor
  • 4. Willy Gilliland

訳詩(PDF)

  • 1. 妖精の山査子(さんざし)
  • 3. 錨鎖(いかり)鍛冶

原詩出典

* The Ballads of Ireland. Collected and Edited by Edward Hayes. Vol. 2. London, 1857.
* Lays of the Western Gael 1865. Otley, Washington D. C.: Woodstock Books, 2001.
* Poems of Sir Samuel Ferguson. With an Introduction by Alfred Perceval Graves. Dublin: The Talbot Press, n. d.