hellog〜英語史ブログ / 2024-11-24

■ #5690. B&C の第60節 "Latin Influence of the Second Period" の第2段落を Taku さんと対談精読しました [bchel][latin][borrowing][christianity][link][voicy][heldio][anglo-saxon][st_augustine][history][bede]

　今朝の Voicy heldio で「#1274. 英語史の古典的名著 Baugh and Cable を読む (60-2) Latin Influence of the Second Period --- Taku さん対談精読実況中継」を配信しました．これは4日前に配信した「#1270. 英語史の古典的名著 Baugh and Cable を読む (60-1) Latin Influence of the Second Period --- 対談精読実況中継」の続編です（hellog でも同趣旨の記事 [2024-11-20-1] を公開しています）．
　「対談精読実況中継」なるものは，「#5291. heldio の「英語史の古典的名著 Baugh and Cable を読む」シリーズが順調に進んでいます」 ([2023-10-22-1]) の一環として，時々ゲストをお招きしつつお届けしているのですが，今回は前回に引き続き MC として金田拓さん（帝京科学大学）にご出演いただきました．Voicy のコラボ収録（オンライン）機能を初めて利用してみたのですが，音声も十分にクリアです．
　今回の精読箇所は第60節 "Latin Influence of the Second Period: The Christianizing of Britain" の第2段落です．さほど長くない1節を，Taku さんと60分近くかけてじっくりと読みました．実に豊かな精読タイムでした．イングランドのキリスト教化がいかに困難だったか，そしていかにラッキーだったかを解説するくだりです．お時間のあるときに，ぜひ対象テキスト（Baugh and Cable, p. 79 より以下に掲載）を追いながら「超」精読のおもしろさを堪能していただければ．

It is not easy to appreciate the difficulty of the task that lay before this small band. Their problem was not so much to substitute one ritual for another as to change the philosophy of a nation. The religion that the Anglo-Saxons shared with the other Germanic tribes seems to have had but a slight hold on the people at the close of the sixth century; but their habits of mind, their ideals, and the action to which these gave rise were often in sharp contrast to the teachings of the New Testament. Germanic philosophy exalted physical courage, independence even to haughtiness, and loyalty to one's family or leader that left no wrong unavenged. Christianity preached meekness, humility, and patience under suffering and said that if a man struck you on one cheek you should turn the other. Clearly it was no small task that Augustine and his forty monks faced in trying to alter the age-old mental habits of such a people. They might even have expected difficulty in obtaining a respectful hearing. But they seem to have been men of exemplary lives, appealing personality, and devotion to purpose, and they owed their ultimate success as much to what they were as to what they said. Fortunately, upon their arrival in England one circumstance was in their favor. There was in the kingdom of Kent, in which they landed, a small number of Christians. But the number, though small, included no less a person than the queen. Æthelberht, the king, had sought his wife among the powerful nation of the Franks, and the princess Bertha had been given to him only on condition that she be allowed to continue undisturbed in her Christian faith. Æthelberht set up a small chapel near his palace in Kentwarabyrig (Canterbury), and there the priest who accompanied Bertha to England conducted regular services for her and the numerous dependents whom she brought with her. The circumstances under which Æthelberht received Augustine and his companions are related in the extract from Bede given §47 earlier. Æthelberht was himself baptized within three months, and his example was followed by numbers of his subjects. By the time Augustine died seven years later, the kingdom of Kent had become wholly Christian.

　本節と関連の深い hellog 記事や heldio コンテンツは，「#5686. B&C の第60節 "Latin Influence of the Second Period" の第1段落を対談精読実況生中継しました」 ([2024-11-20-1]) に挙げたリンク集よりご参照ください．B&C の対談精読実況中継は，今後も時折実施していきたいと思います．

　・ Baugh, Albert C. and Thomas Cable. A History of the English Language. 6th ed. London: Routledge, 2013.

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