James Hoggジェイムズ・ホッグ / 1770-1835

Category

スコットランドの詩人、小説家。旧セルカーク州エトリックフォレスト (Ettrick Forest) に生まれる。羊飼いを生業としたところから、詩人として成功した後年 ‘Ettrick Shepherd’ と呼ばれた。国境地方の伝承バラッドの蒐集をしたスコット (Sir Walter Scott) を手伝って、The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802-3) の出版に貢献した。スコットの情熱に影響されて自らバラッド詩をつくるようになった経緯を『自伝』の中で次のように述べている。

“The enthusiasm with which [Scott] recited, and spoke of our ancient ballads, during that first tour of his through the forest, inspired me with a determination immediately to begin and imitate them, which I did, and soon grew tolerably good at it. I dedicated ‘The Mountain Bard’ to him.” [“Autobiography”, The Works of the Ettrick Shepherd (Centenary Edition) with a Memoir of the Author by the Rev. Thomas Thomson (London, 1876) 463]

“Sir David Graeme” その他の有名なバラッド詩の多くを含む詩集 The Mountain Bard は1807年に出版され、ベストセラーになるほどの人気を博した。1824年には The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner という小説を発表し、これも大成功を収めた。

ホッグの回想録を書いたトマス・トムソン (Thomas Thomson) は、伝承バラッドをよくうたっていた母親がホッグに与えた影響について次のように語っている。

“[T]he education of his boyhood had been chiefly oral; it was from a mother’s voice rather than from books and schoolmasters, that he had derived what he knew, and laid the foundation of his subsequent progress and acquirements. She had stored his early memory with the rude, but vitally poetic and inspiring ballads of the Border, which were still fresh in his heart, and with the indelible character of those first impressions out of which the future man is moulded; so that, when his attempts in poetry commenced, they not only communicated the impulse, but served as guides and exemplars.” (Works of Ettrick Shepherd xiv-xv)

母から子へとうたい継がれる伝承の世界で育ったホッグは誠に幸運な詩人であり、ワーズワス (William Wordsworth) その他の多くのロマン派詩人たちに愛された。彼が1835年11月21日に亡くなった時、ワーズワスは “Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg” という追悼の詩を書いている。　(M. Y.)

Scottish poet and novelist, born on a farm near Ettrick Forest in Selkirk. Hogg had little education, and became a shepherd living in poverty, hence his later nickname, the ‘Ettrick Shepherd’. Hogg helped Sir Walter Scott with the publication of The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802-3).

In his autobiography Hogg says that ‘The enthusiasm with which [Scott] recited, and spoke of our ancient ballads, during that first tour of his through the forest, inspired me with a determination immediately to begin and imitate them, which I did, and soon grew tolerably good at it. I dedicated “The Mountain Bard” to him.’ [“Autobiography”, The Works of the Ettrick Shepherd (Centenary Edition) with a Memoir of the Author by the Rev. Thomas Thomson (London, 1876) 463]

The Mountain Bard was published in 1807, and became a best-seller, containing “Sir David Graeme” and other well-known literary ballads.

Thomas Thomson, in his memoir, emphasizes the mother’s influence upon the poet:

[T]he education of his boyhood had been chiefly oral; it was from a mother’s voice rather than from books and schoolmasters, that he had derived what he knew, and laid the foundation of his subsequent progress and acquirements. She had stored his early memory with the rude, but vitally poetic and inspiring ballads of the Border, which were still fresh in his heart, and with the indelible character of those first impressions out of which the future man is moulded; so that, when his attempts in poetry commenced, they not only communicated the impulse, but served as guides and exemplars. (Works of Ettrick Shepherd xiv-xv)

Hogg was a happy poet with mother-to-child transmission of the ballad heritage, and was loved by many literary figures, including William Wordsworth, who wrote a poem, “Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg” (1835). (M. Y.)

原詩（PDF）

1. The Death of Douglas
2. Earl Walter
3. The Fray of Elibank
4. Gilmanscleuch
5. The Gude Greye Katt
6. Jock Johnstone the Tinkler
7. The Laird of Lairistan
8. The Liddel Bower
9. Lord Derwent
10. Lyttil Pynkie
11. The Mermaid
12. Mess John
13. The Pedlar
14. Sir David Graeme
15. The Witch of Fife

訳詩（PDF）

1. リズデイルの騎士ダグラスの死
2. ウォルター卿
3. エリバンクの戦い
4. ギルマンの渓谷
5. 善き灰色猫
6. 鋳掛屋ジョック・ジョンストン
7. レリスタンの領主
8. リデルの東家
15. ファイフの魔女女房

原詩出典

＊　The Works of the Ettrick Shepherd. With Memoir of the Author by the Rev. Thomas Thomson. London: Blackie & Son, 1876.