オウィディウス『祭暦』第6巻131行〜168行 フクロウに喰われたプロカ
Ovid, Fasti VI.(AD.06) 131
フレイザー英訳版より重訳
FASTI BOOK 6, TRANSLATED BY JAMES G. FRAZER
[131] 貪欲な鳥が在る。ピーネウスの口から食事を横取りした鳥そのものではないけれど、その子孫には違いない。頭は大きく、目はギョロギョロ、クチバシは強奪に適した形、羽毛は灰色に烟り、鉤爪が備わっている。夜な夜な飛び回っては乳飲み子を襲い、揺りかごから奪い取った体を汚す。そのくちばしを以て乳飲み子の肉を引き裂き、その喉には飲んだ血が詰まっているという。スクリーチ・オウル（金切り声の鳥）という、その名の由来は、夜になると酷い金切り声を上げるからである(日本のフクロウと違い、悲鳴のような鳴き方をする)。さて、そんな生まれつきの鳥なのか、それとも魔術によって作り出された、マルシ人の呪文によって鳥に変身させられた老婆に過ぎないのかは判らないが、プロカの部屋に連中がやってきた。その部屋では、生後5日目の子供プロカが鳥たちの餌食になっていた。鳥たちは貪欲な舌で乳飲み子を吸い、哀れな子供は泣き叫び、助けを求めた。 その泣き声に驚いて乳母が駆け寄ると、子供の頬が鳥の硬い爪で傷つけられていた。どうすればいいのだろう？ その子の顔色は、早霜に萎れた葉のようであった。彼女はクラナエーのところへ行き、何が起こったかを話した。クラナエー曰く「恐れることはない。子供は無事であろう。」ゆりかごに向かうと、涙を流す父母に曰く「泣くことはない。この子を癒そう。」すぐさま門柱に三度、次々とイチゴノキ Arbutus unedo の葉で触れ、敷居に三度イチゴノキの葉で印をつけた。部屋の入口に水を撒き（その水には薬が入っていた）、生後2ヶ月の雌豚の臓物を手にした。宣うこと「夜の鳥たちよ、この子の体内を救い給え。幼き犠牲を幼子に代え給え。心臓には心臓を、はらわたにははらわたを。この命は汝等に捧ぐ、より良き命のために」こうして生け贄を捧げると、切り取った内臓を屋外に置き、生け贄に立ち会った者が振り返ることを禁じた。小窓から光が差し込む部屋には、白い茨から切り出したヤヌスの杖が置かれた。その後、鳥がゆりかごを襲うことはなくなり、少年は元の顔色を取り戻したという。
There are greedy birds, not those that cheated Phineus’ maw of its repast,*15 though from those they are descended. Big is their head, goggle their eyes, their beaks are formed for rapine, their feathers blotched with grey, their claws fitted with hooks. They fly by night and attack nurseless children, and defile their bodies, snatched from their cradles. They are said to rend the flesh of sucklings with their beaks, and their throats are full of the blood which they have drunk. Screech-owl is their name, but the reason of the name is that they are wont to screech horribly by night. Whether, therefore, they are born birds, or are made such by enchantment and are nothing but beldames transformed into fowls by a Marsian*16 spell, they came into the chambers of Proca.*17 In the chambers Proca, a child five days old, was a fresh prey for the birds. They sucked the infant with their greedy tongues, and the poor child squalled and craved help. Alarmed by the cry of her fosterling, the nurse ran to him and found his cheeks scored by their rigid claws. What was she to do? The colour of the child’s face was like the common hue of late leaves nipped by an early frost. She went to Cranaë and told what had befallen. Cranaë said, “Lay fear aside; thy nursling will be safe.” She went to the cradle; mother and father were weeping. “Restrain your tears,” she said, “I myself will heal the child.” Straightway she thrice touched the doorposts, one after the other, with arbutus leaves; thrice with arbutus leaves she marked the threshold. She sprinkled the entrance with water (and the water was drugged), and she held the raw inwards of a sow just two months old. And thus she spoke: “Ye birds of night, spare the child’s inwards: a small victim falls for a small child. Take, I pray ye, a heart for a heart, entrails for entrails. This life we give you for a better life.” When she had thus sacrificed, she set the severed inwards in the open air, and forbade those present at the sacrifice to look back at them. A rod of Janus, taken from the white-thorn, was placed where a small window gave light to the chambers. After that, it is said that the birds did not violate the cradle, and the boy recovered his former colour.
15. The Harpies. See Virg. Aen. iii. 25.
16. Marsians were famous for wizardry.
17. King of Alba Longa.
ラテン語原文131行〜140行
sunt avidae volucres, non quae Phineia mensis guttura fraudabant, sed genus inde trahunt:
grande caput, stantes oculi, rostra apta rapinis;
canities pennis, unguibus hamus inest;
nocte volant puerosque petunt nutricis egentes, et vitiant cunis corpora rapta suis;
carpere dicuntur lactentia viscera rostris et plenum poto sanguine guttur habent.
est illis strigibus nomen;
sed nominis huius causa quod horrenda stridere nocte solent.
Marsians: イタリア半島中東部Abruzzo県にあるMarsica地方に古くから住むイタリア人の一部族。魔法使いの種族とローマ人が認識
Proca: Alba Longaの王
Cranaë: アテーナイ王女。アテーナイ王クラナオスの娘。ローマ人は女神として信仰した
