Rain won’tかRain can’tか

雨ニモマケズ Rain Won't (2013/11/06) 宮沢賢治 商品詳細を見る

以前紹介した宮沢賢治の雨にも負けずの英訳をされたアーサービナードさんが朝日新聞の英語版に登場していました。

Miyazawa's verse gets fresh look at hands of U.S. poet, Japanese animator
February 12, 2014
By TAKUJI HOSOMI/ Staff Writer

An American poet now resident in Japan teamed up with a celebrated anime artist to publish an English-language edition of a famous verse that many Japanese can recite by heart.

Arthur Binard, a 46-year-old resident of Tokyo's Itabashi Ward, translated "Rain Won't," one of the best-known works by Kenji Miyazawa (1896-1933), a children's author and poet. Koji Yamamura, 49, illustrated the book.

"I wanted to use the English language as a brand-new lens through which more people can learn about the rich quality of the times that Kenji lived," said Binard, who has won prizes for his literary oeuvres in the Japanese language.

雨にも負けずをRain won’t stop meと訳されていますが、当初はRain can’t stop meとcan’tを使っていたと語っています。

"Rain won't stop me/ Wind won't stop me," the text begins.
Binard initially used "can't" instead of "won't," but replaced the word at the last moment.
"I thought that 'can't' was condescending and patronizing to the rain," the poet said. "That would have totally been at odds with the universe of the work that was rooted in a symbiosis with nature."

Rain won’t stop meでもRain can’t stop meでも、意志の強い行動力のある人物像が浮かび上がると思いますが、Kenji was simply fulfilling rolesとビナードさんが捉えていることと無縁ではないかもしれません。

In "Rain Won't," Kenji enumerates qualities of the human spirit that he says he wants to emulate. He says, among other things, that he wants to look after a sick child in the east and mediate disputes in the north. Binard said he believes that Kenji was simply fulfilling roles that he had to play while living in a rural society at the mercy of nature.

まあ、療養生活をしていた人物の評価としては異論が出るかもしれません。。。個人的には、自分は役立たずだという後ろめたさがあったのではと思ってしまいます。。。