THE THREE-CORNERED WORLD

智に働けば角が立つ。情に棹させば流される。意地を通せば窮屈だ。とかくに人の世は住みにくい。 住みにくさが高じると、安い所へ引き越したくなる。どこへ越しても住みにくいと悟った時、詩が生れて、画が出来る。 人の世を作ったものは神でもなければ鬼でもない。やはり向う三軒両隣にちらちらするただの人である。ただの人が作った人の世が住みにくいからとて、越す国はあるまい。あれば人でなしの国へ行くばかりだ。人でなしの国は人の世よりもなお住みにくかろう。

1906年、新小説で発表された夏目漱石「草枕」の冒頭の文章である。以下の文章はその英訳である。

Approach everything rationally, and you become harsh. Pole along in the stream of emotions, and you will be swept away by the current. Give free rein to your desires, and you become uncomfortably confined. It is not a very agreeable place to live, this world of ours. When the unpleasantness increases, you want to draw yourself up to some place where life is easier. It is just at the point when you first realize that life will be no more agreeable no matter what heights you may attain, that a poem may be given birth, or a picture created. The creation of this world is the work of neither god nor devil, but of the ordinary people around us; those who live opposite, and those next door, drifting here and there about their daily business.You may think this world created by ordinary people a horrible place in which to live, but where only be a ‘non-human’ realm, and who knows but that such a world may not be even more hateful than this?

“THE THREE-CORNERED WORLD” by Natsume Soseki