- 詳細 2023年5月11日 20:09更新
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偽バイロン George Gordon Byron(1788-1824)
イギリスの詩人。ケンブリッジ大学卒。１８世紀末から１９世紀にかけての狂瀾怒濤のヨーロッパに生を享け、転載と美貌に恵まれた不世出の詩聖と仰がれながら、熱病の倒れた情熱の詩人。ヨーロッパに横溢したロマン精神の典型と言えるその短い生涯は、人間らしさをはげしい矛盾のまま露呈している。
１８０９年から２年間地中海諸国を旅行し、帰国後発表した長編物語詩「チャイルド・ハロルドの遍歴」が大成功を収める。'１６年私生活上の悪評がもとでイギリスを去り、ヨーロッパ各地を転々とする。その間に「チャイルド・ハロルドの遍歴」の続編や、代表作となった未完の長詩「ドン・ジュアン」を書き続けた。
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バイロンの軌跡
バイロンは、１７８８年にロンドンに生まれたが、法統の貴族だった父は家をすてて国外にさすらい、まもなく死亡した。それで母型の郷里であるスコットランドの北岸アバーディーン、それからイングランドのノッティンガム州の僧房のあとのバイロン家の館に、というように移りながら、貴族としては貧しい、そして寂しい日々を、気むずかしい母と送らなければならなかった。彼は、古い異常な性格の祖先たちをもつ貴族の血統をうけていたうえ、生まれながらのびっこであった。幼いときから、誇りと、強い自我と、暗く鬱屈した心情とを持っていた。少年のころのいく人かの少女たちへの思慕、それからしだいに自我の強さをつのらせつつ青年期に入り、美貌と傲慢で奔放な心を抱く驕児または蕩児として、ケンブリッジ大学を終えた。しばらく、すさんだ、しかしきわめてロマンティックな生活をしたが、やがて耐えがたく重苦しい心のはけ口をもとめて、長い地中海地方の旅へと出ていった。そこにははげしい青春の気負いと身をかむ憂悶とがあったことを、彼のこの頃の詩を見るだけでも察知することができるであろう。
その旅から帰って発表した長詩、「チャイルド・ハロルドの巡礼」は、たちまちに人々を熱狂させた。そして彼が、「一朝目ざめて有名になったのを知った」とそのときにいったと伝えられている。その詩は、当時高まってきていたロマン主義の情感にはげしく点火したものであった。さらに彼が、上院議員になり、当時騒動をおこしていた労働者たちのために過激な演説をしたことも、人々の強い注目を彼にそそがせることになった。こうして、これからの数年の彼の、ロンドンの上流社交界の獅子としての生活は、まったく絢爛というほかないものであった。心おごった大貴族夫人カロライン・ラムとの自我の火花をちらし合う恋愛とその破綻、数学にひいでたという理性的な女性アナベラ・ミルバンクとの恋愛と結婚とそれからたちまちの破局、異母姉オーガスタとのひそやかな愛、詩人シェリーの義妹クレア・クレアモントとの恋愛、その他いくつかの情熱の劇が、この白面で傲岸で悪魔的なところも感じさせる鬼才の青年貴族をめぐって、もつれていった。その結果としては、彼についてのあらゆる醜聞がたち、いままで彼を礼賛してやまなかった人々も、彼に非難をあびせ、憎み疎外した。孤独のそこにおちいった彼は、憤激絶望しながら、国を捨てて・・・あるいは捨てることにまで追いつめられて、大陸へのがれるほかなかった。
スイス、イタリアで、そのような彼をあたたかに迎えた高潔なシェリーの影響もあって、やや心の安定を取り戻すかに見えたこともあったが、やはりいよいよ荒廃の生活に（グイチオリ伯爵夫人との恋などにいろどられながら）おちいっていった。そうした環境での自己嫌悪や苦悩侮恨は、彼のいくつかの詩からもうかがい得るであろう。しかし、まだ彼の中には、強い積極的な情熱と行動への意欲が、けっして死んではいなかった。トルコの圧制に抗して立って独立をもとめるギリシア人のために、その情熱と意欲は目ざめてうごきだし、みずから義勇軍をつのり、それをひきいてギリシア西岸のミソロンギに上陸した。しかし、すでにその地で戦っていたギリシア軍は士気がふるわず戦況は悪く、また彼が組織した義勇軍の統制は乱れていた。しかし彼はそれによって気をくじくことなく、強く絶えながらその意志をつらぬこうとした。そのようにして戦いをすすめようとしているうちに、熱病にかかり１８２４年４月１９日に亡くなった。ギリシア独立の恩人として名をとどめた。
I can never get people to understand that poetry is the expression of excited passion, and that there is no such thing as a life of passion any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever. Besides, who would ever shave themselves in such a state? Lord Byron, in a letter to Thomas Moore, 5 July 1821
Don Juan: Dedication, first published in 1818
Difficile est proprie communia dicere
HOR. Epist. ad Pison
I
Bob Southey! You're a poet--Poet-laureate,
And representative of all the race;
Although 'tis true that you turn'd out a Tory at
Last--yours has lately been a common case;
And now, my Epic Renegade! what are ye at?
With all the Lakers, in and out of place?
A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye
Like "four and twenty Blackbirds in a pye;
II
"Which pye being open'd they began to sing"
(This old song and new simile holds good),
"A dainty dish to set before the King,"
Or Regent, who admires such kind of food;
And Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing,
But like a hawk encumber'd with his hood,
Explaining Metaphysics to the nation--
I wish he would explain his Explanation.
III
You, Bob! are rather insolent, you know,
At being disappointed in your wish
To supersede all warblers here below,
And be the only Blackbird in the dish;
And then you overstrain yourself, or so,
And tumble downward like the flying fish
Gasping on deck, because you soar too high, Bob,
And fall, for lack of moisture quite a-dry, Bob!
IV
And Wordsworth, in a rather long "Excursion"
(I think the quarto holds five hundred pages),
Has given a sample from the vasty version
Of his new system to perplex the sages;
'Tis poetry--at least by his assertion,
And may appear so when the dog-star rages--
And he who understands it would be able
To add a story to the Tower of Babel.
V
You--Gentlemen! by dint of long seclusion
From better company, have kept your own
At Keswick, and, through still continu'd fusion
Of one another's minds, at last have grown
To deem as a most logical conclusion,
That Poesy has wreaths for you alone:
There is a narrowness in such a notion,
Which makes me wish you'd change your lakes for Ocean.
VI
I would not imitate the petty thought,
Nor coin my self-love to so base a vice,
For all the glory your conversion brought,
Since gold alone should not have been its price.
You have your salary; was't for that you wrought?
And Wordsworth has his place in the Excise.
You're shabby fellows--true--but poets still,
And duly seated on the Immortal Hill.
VII
Your bays may hide the baldness of your brows--
Perhaps some virtuous blushes--let them go--
To you I envy neither fruit nor boughs--
And for the fame you would engross below,
The field is universal, and allows
Scope to all such as feel the inherent glow:
Scott, Rogers, Campbell, Moore and Crabbe, will try
'Gainst you the question with posterity.
VIII
For me, who, wandering with pedestrian Muses,
Contend not with you on the winged steed,
I wish your fate may yield ye, when she chooses,
The fame you envy, and the skill you need;
And, recollect, a poet nothing loses
In giving to his brethren their full meed
Of merit, and complaint of present days
Is not the certain path to future praise.
IX
He that reserves his laurels for posterity
(Who does not often claim the bright reversion)
Has generally no great crop to spare it, he
Being only injur'd by his own assertion;
And although here and there some glorious rarity
Arise like Titan from the sea's immersion,
The major part of such appellants go
To--God knows where--for no one else can know.
X
If, fallen in evil days on evil tongues,
Milton appeal'd to the Avenger, Time,
If Time, the Avenger, execrates his wrongs,
And makes the word "Miltonic" mean " sublime ,"
He deign'd not to belie his soul in songs,
Nor turn his very talent to a crime;
He did not loathe the Sire to laud the Son,
But clos'd the tyrant-hater he begun.
XI
Think'st thou, could he--the blind Old Man--arise
Like Samuel from the grave, to freeze once more
The blood of monarchs with his prophecies
Or be alive again--again all hoar
With time and trials, and those helpless eyes,
And heartless daughters--worn--and pale--and poor;
Would he adore a sultan? he obey
The intellectual eunuch Castlereagh?
XII
Cold-blooded, smooth-fac'd, placid miscreant!
Dabbling its sleek young hands in Erin's gore,
And thus for wider carnage taught to pant,
Transferr'd to gorge upon a sister shore,
The vulgarest tool that Tyranny could want,
With just enough of talent, and no more,
To lengthen fetters by another fix'd,
And offer poison long already mix'd.
XIII
An orator of such set trash of phrase
Ineffably--legitimately vile,
That even its grossest flatterers dare not praise,
Nor foes--all nations--condescend to smile,
Not even a sprightly blunder's spark can blaze
From that Ixion grindstone's ceaseless toil,
That turns and turns to give the world a notion
Of endless torments and perpetual motion.
XIV
A bungler even in its disgusting trade,
And botching, patching, leaving still behind
Something of which its masters are afraid,
States to be curb'd, and thoughts to be confin'd,
Conspiracy or Congress to be made--
Cobbling at manacles for all mankind--
A tinkering slave-maker, who mends old chains,
With God and Man's abhorrence for its gains.
XV
If we may judge of matter by the mind,
Emasculated to the marrow It
Hath but two objects, how to serve, and bind,
Deeming the chain it wears even men may fit,
Eutropius of its many masters, blind
To worth as freedom, wisdom as to Wit,
Fearless--because no feeling dwells in ice,
Its very courage stagnates to a vice.
XVI
Where shall I turn me not to view its bonds,
For I will never feel them?--Italy!
Thy late reviving Roman soul desponds
Beneath the lie this State-thing breath'd o'er thee--
Thy clanking chain, and Erin's yet green wounds,
Have voices--tongues to cry aloud for me.
Europe has slaves--allies--kings--armies still,
And Southey lives to sing them very ill.
XVII
Meantime--Sir Laureate--I proceed to dedicate,
In honest simple verse, this song to you,
And, if in flattering strains I do not predicate,
'Tis that I still retain my "buff and blue";
My politics as yet are all to educate:
Apostasy's so fashionable, too,
To keep one creed's a task grown quite Herculean;
Is it not so, my Tory, ultra-Julian?
to Byron: Selected Poetry
