Neverending Storyの勉強
14:03 2019/10/11
子どもたちが読んでいた岩波書店の「はてしない物語」を読んだのが始めで、やがて映画のThe Neverending Storyを見て、次に The Neverending Story 2を見て、映画は原作とは違うなと感じた。
それで、今日、思い立って昔買った英語版のTHE NEVERENDING STORYを勉強することにした。
引用：PUFFIN BOOKS "THE NEVERENDING STORY" published by the Penguin Group
目 次
Carl Conrad Coreander Old Books
I Fantastica in Danger
XIII Perilin, the Night Forest
XXVI The Water of Life
Carl Conrad Coreander Old Books
目次へ
This inscription could be seen on the glass door of a small shop, but naturally this was only the way it looked if you were inside the dimly lit shop, looking out at the street through the plate glass door.
'My name is Bastian,' said the boy. 'Bastian Balthazar Bux.'
'And your mother?'
'She - she's gone'
'Your parents are divorced?'
'No,' said Bastian. 'She's dead.'
At that moment the telephone rang.
It came to Bastian that he had been staring the whole time at the book that Mr Coreander had been holding and that was now lying on the armchair He couldn't take his eyes off it. It seemed to have a kind of magnetic power that attracted him irrestibility.
He went over to the chair, slowly held out his hand, and touched the book. In that moment something inside him went click!, as though a trap had shut. Bastian had a vague feeling that touching the book had started something irrevocable, which is now take its course.
He picked up the book when he moved examined it from all sides. It was bound in copper-colored silk that shimmered when he moved it about.
Leafing through the pages, he saw the book was printed in two colors. There seemed to be no pictures, but there were large, beautiful capital letters at the beginning of the chaptere. Examining the binding more closely, he disconered two snakes on it, one light and one dark. They were biting each other's tail, so forming an oval. And inside the oval, in strangely intricate letters, he saw the title: The Neverending Story
Bastian looked at the book.
'I wonder,' he said to himself, 'what's in a book while it's closed. Oh, I know it's full of letters printed on paper, but all the same, something must be happening, because as soon as I open it, there's a whole story with people I don't know yet all kinds of adventures and deeds and battles. And sometimes there are storms at sea, or it takes you to strange cities and countires.
All those things are somehow shut up in a book. Of course you have to read it to find out. But it's already there, that's the funny thing. I just wish I knew how it could be.'
Suddenly an almost festive mood came over him.
He settled himself, picked up the book, opend it to the first page, and began to read
The Neverending Story.
I Fantastica in Danger
目次へ
A giant, who looked as if the whole of him were made of gray stone, lay stretched out on his belly. He was almost ten feet long. Propped up on one elbow, he was looking into the fire. In his weather-beaten stone face, which seemed strangedly small in comparison with his powerful shoulders, his teeth stood out like a row of steel chiselsのみ.
このrock chewersと、ボールのようなwill-o'-the wispと、不思議な形をしたnight-hobは、the Childlike Empressに会うために、the Ivory Towerを目ざしていた。
will-o'-the wispによれば：
A hole, after all, is someting. This is nothing at all. The place got bigger little by little. If somebody put his foot into one of them by mistake, the foot - or hand - or whatever else he put in - woul be gone too.
Perilin, the Night Forest
目次へ
MOON CHILD, I'm coming!' Bastian repeated in the darkness. He felt something indescribably sweet and comforting flow into him from the name and fill his whole being. So he said it again and again: 'Moon Child! I'm coming! Moon Child, here I am.'
And then he heard a delicate, birdlike voice answered him and that may have answered him several times without his hearing it. It seemed very near, and yet he could not have said from what direction it came.
'Here I am, my Bastian.'
'Is it you, Moon Child?'
She laught in a strangely lilting way.
'Who else would I be? Why, you've just given me my lovely name. Thank you for it. Welcome, my savior and my hero.
'Whre are we, Moon Child?'
'I am with you, and you are with me.'
'Moon Child, is this the end?'
'No, it's the beginning.'
'Fantastica will be born again from your wishes, my Bastian. Through me they will become reality.'
'How many wishes have I got?'
'As many as you want - the more, the better, my Bastian. Fantastica will be all the more rich and varied.'
'Why is it so dark, Moon Child?'
'The beginning is always dark, my Bastian.'
'I'd awfully like to see you again, Moon Child. The way you were when you looked at me.'
Again he heard the soft lilting laught.
'Why are you laughing?'
'Because I'm happy.'
'Happy? Why?'
'You've just made your first wish.'
'Will you make it come true?'
'What is it, Moon Child?'
'A grain of sand, all that's left of my boundless realm. I make you a present of it.'
こうしてファンタージェンに残された一粒の砂が光りはじめた。
'I was ashamed to let you see me.'
'Ashamed? Why?'
'I mean somebody strong and brave and handsome - may be a prince - anyway, not someone like me.'
He couldn't see her, for he had lowered his eyes, but again he heard her soft lilting laugh.
'You see, now you're laughing at me.'
'Let me show you something, my Bastian. Look into my eyes.'
Bastianは自分が理想的な王子に変身しているのに驚き、見とれた。
And then he turned toward Moon Child.
She was gone!
Bastianの欲しかったものはこれだったのか。そして、それに応じて彼の心は変わって行く。
XXVI The Water of Life
目次へ
'I am the Water of Life,
Out of myself I grow,
The more you drink of me,
The fuller I will flow.'
'How can we get to it?' Atreyu asked.
'It's asking us our names,' Falkor reported.
'I'm Atreyu!' Atreyu cried.
'I'm Falkor!' cried Falkor.
The boy without a name was silent.
Atreyu looked at him, then took him by the hand and cried:
'He's Bastian Balthazar Bux!'
'It asks,' Falkor translated, 'why he doesn't speak for himself.'
'He can't,' said Atreyu. 'He has forgotten everything,'
'Without memory, it says, he cannot come in. The snakes won't let him through.'
Atreyu replied: 'I have stored up everything he told us about himself and his world. I vouch for him.'
'It wants to know by what right?'
'I am his friend,' said Atreyu.
'Now it's speaking of your wound. It wants to know how that came about.'
'We were both right,' said Atreyu, 'and we were both wrong. But now Bastian has given up AURYN of his own free will.'
'AURYN is the door that Bastian has been looking for. He carried it with him from the start. But - it says - the snakes won't let anything belonging to Fantastica cross the threshold. Bastian must therefore give up everything the Childlike Empress gave him. Otherwise he cannot drink of the Water of Life.'
'But we are in her sign!' cried Atreyu. 'Isn't she herself here?'
'It says that Moon Child's power ends here. She is the only one who can never set foot in this place. She cannot penetrate to the center of AURYN, because she cannot cast off her own self.'
'Now,' said Falkor, 'it's asking whether Bastian is ready.'
Atreyu took Bastian by the hand and led him through the terrible gate toward the fountain, which now lay before them in all its grandeur.
Bastianが元の世界に戻ってきて、Mr Coreanderにすべてを話したとき：
'Then you believe me?' Bastian asked.
'Of course I believe you,' said Mr Coreander. 'Any sensible person would.'
'There are people who can never go to Fantastica,' said Mr Coreander, 'and others who can, but who stay there forever. And there are just a few who go to Fantastica and come back. Like you. And they make both worlds well again.'