KOBAYAKAWA TAKAKAGE TESTS THE WIT OF HIS RETAINERS.
小早川隆景が家臣達の技量を試す
Kobayakawa Saemon-no-jo Takakage had among his retainers one who was very well read and quick-witted.
小早川左衛門佐隆景の家来集の中、一人よく書物を読み機転の利く家臣がいました。
One day Takakage, when walking in his garden, sat down on a tree and put some grass on his head, calling out to his attendants:
“Here! Bring me this!”
ある日隆景が庭を散策中、木に腰掛け草を頭にかざして供者へ「これをここへ！」と言いました。
But they could not understand what it was he wanted
しかし、供達は殿の意味を理解できません。 .
The quick witted one, however, went off immediately and soon returned with a cup of tea.
その時、機転の利く一人の家来はその場をすぐ退出、茶を点て一碗携えすぐ戻って来ました。
“Now you see why it is,” observed Takakage, as the others stared in amazement, “that I have a high opinion of this man.
「なぜ解ったのか？」と隆景が訪ねると同時に皆びっくりしました。「ワシは一人のようできた家人を持っておるわい。」
A good general is one who encourages ability of every kind and uses it in its place, and who does not despise any sort of capacity.”
「素晴らしい武将とは、才能をあらゆる場面場所で発揮できるしけして躊躇や迷ったりはしない。」
This was intended to be a lesson to the others, who had been inclined to be contemptuous of one who shone rather in letters than in military matters.
この話は、戦において、書物からの知識のみに価値を置き機転の利かぬ武将への軽蔑を指し示しています。
The Chinese character for ‘Tea' is composed of the three elements ‘Grass' on top of ‘Man' over ‘Tree.'
漢字で‘茶'とは木と人と草の三つで出来ているのです。
• There is a fanciful explanation of the character as ‘Tree of a person of twenty.'
The great Indian physician Jiva, it is said, had a daughter of twenty who died and in his grief he poured out his beet remedies on her tomb, from which the Tea plant forthwith sprung up.
一つの奇抜な文字解説として偉大な医師であるＪｉｖａの話。それは、「二十歳の人の木」、二十歳の娘が死んで、彼の深い悲しみによって墓前にビートが溢れ出しました。するとそこから茶の芽が出て来ました。
Kobayakawa Takakage was for a time very fond of Cha-no-yu, but afterwards gave it up.
小早川隆景は一時期茶の湯に親しみましたが , 後、止めてしまいました。
In explanation of this he once said to a friend.
理由として彼は友人に言っています。
“Cha-no-yu is a very noble and elegant amusement since it inculcates avoidance of the empty vanities of this world and a taste for life spent amid the beauties of nature,
「茶の湯はとても崇高で優雅で魅了されるもの、それは、この世の何もない空しさを回避する術から、素晴らしい自然の中で生きる事を教えてくれる。
leading men to find their pleasure in the artistic detachment of mind that arises from the contemplation of the calmness of cloud and water and the grace of fish and bird;
修練を積み悟りを得た人間、それは、空と海の優雅な鳥や魚たちがいる瞑想の世界から目覚めた達人であり、
yet when one comes to examine the ways of the tea-lovers themselves,
茶人として道を究めようと修練している間は到達しない。
they seem to think of nothing but the connoisseurship of tea-vessels and their value and how to find bargains in them,
彼らは無に見えるが、茶湯道具の鑑定眼や価値、宝物を見つけ出す能力に長けていて、
and consider it clever to get a high price for things they have picked up for a song,
道具の中に詩文の様な物語を語り最上の価値を創り出すことが巧みであり、
and give themselves fancy names and so on, and the result is a lot of bickering and jealousy and the real meaning of Cha-no-yu is forgotten.
実にしゃれた名を付け、茶の湯の本質であるきらめきや心配りを内包している。」
Even without that man's mind is liable to be attracted quite enough by material things, so I have determined to forego this pleasure for the future.
「同様に、茶人たる者は、道具の素材に魅了されていて、私はその才が無くあきらめる事にした。」っと結んでいます。
At the present day the late Marshal Prince Yamagata seems to have come to much the same conclusion.
現代において、故山県有朋公爵は同様の事を言っています。
In the second volume of Takahashi Yoshio's Koshin Chadoki there is an account of the very modest Kyoto villa of the great soldier statesman called Murin-am, which consisted of only an eight mat room with anteroom, a ten mat reception room, a foreign style study for the winter and a three mat daime Tea-room and Mizuya.
高橋義雄が著したＫｏｓｈｉｎ茶道記二巻に、京都の無隣庵と言う風雅な建築物の記述があります。これは前述の山県有朋、武人の別荘です。八畳の控えの間、十畳の儀礼の間、北欧風の洋間、そして三畳台目の茶室と水屋があります。
The late Prince also built in the very fine garden of this villa a copy of the famous Tea-room called En-an and gave a Cha-no-yu to inaugurate it.
先の皇太子を招き、この屋敷の素晴らしい庭に燕庵という有名な茶室を模して作り、披露目の茶の湯を催しました。
For this he provided only ordinary utensils such as are used for practice.
そして、有朋はここで普通の道具をつかって茶の湯の接待をしました。
To this meeting were invited a number of well-known Kyoto Chajin.
客は京都の名の知れた茶人達でした。
Since apparently they found nothing much they could say about his Tea utensils some of them fell to discussing famous Tea-things they had seen elsewhere, and the recent sales of such things and the prices paid for them.
茶人達が見たところ、有朋が使う道具はごく普通で、特別珍しかったりはせず新しい物で安価な道具でした。
After they had departed the Prince observed that it appeared he had merely provided them with a place in which to discuss the price of other people's possessions : not at all a profitable subject to have to listen to.
彼らが退席した後、皇太子は有朋へ高額な財産として道具を使うのも重要な旨を伝えました。
Afterwards he gave no more Cha-no-yu parties for this kind of Chajin.
その後、彼はこの手の茶人たちと茶会をする事は無かったそうです。