Culture Reflections

Terayama on Life, Death and Fathers

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http://youtu.be/EUeWANKkKHw

Life has an infinite number of answers.

But you get to ask the question just once.

from When I Go to the Battlefield

人生には答えは無数にある。しかし質問はたった一度しか出来ない。

ぼくが戦場に行くとき

 

All dead people become words.

from The Book of Hell

死んだ人はみんなことばになるのだ

地獄篇

 

Fathers are repetition. Fathers are history.

from The Lonesome Whistle

父は反復であり、歴史である。

悲しき口笛

 

When the time comes, my life will come to a full stop. But the death of men who are fathers is not a full stop, but a comma. A comma is a pause before passing on to the next phrase.

from How Many Miles to the Graveyard

時がくると、私の人生にはピリオドが打たれる。だが父親になれた男の死はピリオドではなく、コンマなのだ。コンマは休止符であり、また次のセンテンスにひきつがれてゆくことになる。

墓場まではなんマイル?

 

Unable to become a father I watch for a while an old dog swimming out to sea

from How Many Miles to the Graveyard

父親になれざりしかな遠沖を泳ぐ老犬しばらく見つむ

墓場まではなんマイル

 

Matsu-san the sushi chef died in a car accident. Mari the hostess committed suicide and my father Hachiro died of disease when fighting in the war. My young cousin Tatsuo was stabbed to death. Nakahata-san, my fellow-writer for a small circulation magazine, died of cancer without making his name. My classmate Sawada the cameraman got killed by a stray bullet in Vietnam. Yoshie-san in the next door apartment drowned.

I’ m going to die of cirrhosis of the liver. That much at least is clear. That said, I don’t want to have a grave. If my words are my grave, that’s enough.

from The Lonesome Whistle

寿司屋の松さんは交通事故で死んだ。ホステスの万理さんは自殺で、父の八郎は戦病死だった。従弟の辰夫は刺されて死に、同人誌仲間の中畑は無名のまま癌で死んだ。同級生のカメラマン沢田はヴェトナムで流れ弾に当たって死に、アパートの隣人の芳江さんは溺死した。私は肝硬変で死ぬだろう。そのことだけははっきりしている。だが、だからと言って墓は立てて欲しくない。私の墓は私のであれば充分。

悲しき口笛

 

Dead birds will surely be buried somewhere in the depths of the sky. That sky contains a limitless number of graves. My grave must be there too.

from Apocalypse

死んだ鳥はきっとあの深い空のどこかにうめらられるのだ。あの空にかぎりないお墓があるのだ。そこにはぼくの墓があるに違いない

黙示録

 

Shuji Terayama was 48 years old when he died of a lifelong kidney disease.