Mahuika

The Gods and the heroes of the Maori people are personifications of Nature and her elemental powers: through the forms and doings of these gods and heroes alone could they understand Nature--night and light, cloud and lightning, sun and ocean.

マオリの民の神々と英雄たちは、自然とその元なる力の化身である。この神々と英雄たちの姿と行いを通してのみ、彼らは自然を——夜と光、雲と稲妻、太陽と大海を——解することができた。

The personalities and deeds of these heroes were human translations of the unfathomable workings of Nature and the character of the elements: the winter became the mother of the summer, but the winter has to devour his child again; the night kills the evening, but the morning kills the night through its fire. The moon is slowly eaten by her enemies, and must descend to the dead that she may be born anew out of the world of death; the gods of the lower world devour the dead that they may be cleaned and come to life again in the Reinga. The sun alone is wandering daily through the heavens, and nightly through the world of darkness, with never diminished brilliancy; and this phantasy gave birth to the Sun-god Maui, the great hero of the Maori people.

この英雄たちの人柄と行いは、自然の測りがたい働きと、元なるものの性を人の言葉に移したものであった。冬が夏の母となるが、冬はまた我が子を食わねばならない。夜が夕を殺すが、朝がその火で夜を殺す。月は敵たちにゆっくりと食われ、死者のもとへ下って、死の世界からあらためて生まれねばならない。下の世界の神々は死者を食い、それによって死者は清められ、レインガでふたたび命を得る。ただ太陽だけが、日ごとに天をさまよい、夜ごとに闇の世界をさまよいながら、その輝きを少しも減らさない。そしてこの想念から、太陽の神マウイ、マオリの民の偉大な英雄が生まれた。

Taranga, the goddess of the Night-sun, is his mother, but Tama-nui-ki-te-Rangi, Great Son of Heaven, lifts him as a child, Maui-potiki, out of the ocean upon which he is swimming, and rears him into manhood. With him Maui learns to use his great wisdom, given to him by the sea--his Sun-wisdom. He learns how to assume the form of birds, to throw spears, to cast fishing lines, for birds, spears, fishing-lines, are the wisdom of the sun-rays.

夜の太陽の女神タランガがその母である。けれども天の大いなる子タマ・ヌイ・キ・テ・ランギが、大海に漂う幼子マウイ・ポティキを引き上げて、大人になるまで育てた。マウイはこの者のもとで、海から与えられた大いなる知恵——太陽の知恵——の使い方を学ぶ。鳥の姿をとること、槍を投げること、釣り糸を垂れることを学ぶ。鳥も槍も釣り糸も、太陽の光の知恵なのである。

Grown into manhood, and in full possession of his Sun-wisdom, he wanders forth to find his brothers, the heroes of the Ascending Sun, the Sun at midday, the evening Sun, and his mother, the Night-Sun.

大人になり、太陽の知恵を十分に身につけると、マウイは兄たち——昇る太陽、真昼の太陽、夕の太陽の英雄たち——と、母である夜の太陽を探しに出かける。

His mother recognises him as her son whom she had given birth, and had thrown into the sea, and she takes him into her house; through cunning he follows his mother--who only lives with her children during the night--as pigeon; bird--sunrays, through the caves of the lower world to Hawaiki. Here he throws his berries (sunrays) upon his father and the people and is again recognised by his mother and received with songs of welcome by her and with incantations by his father to make him all-powerful, in the world into which he has now entered as the first Sun-rise.

母は、かつて産んで海へ投げ入れた息子だと認め、その家に迎え入れる。マウイは狡知を用い、鳩となって——鳥は太陽の光——夜のあいだだけ子らと暮らす母の後を追い、下の世界の洞を抜けてハワイキへ行く。ここでマウイは父と人々に木の実(太陽の光)を投げつけ、ふたたび母に認められ、母からは歓迎の歌をもって、父からは呪をもって迎えられる。最初の日の出として今や入り込んだこの世界で、マウイを全能にするための呪である。

But after a time he extinguishes all the fires of the world, and enters the Lower World to steal new fire from his ancestress Mahuika.

けれどもしばらくして、マウイは世界の火をすべて消し、祖母マフイカから新しい火を盗むために下の世界へ入る。

Mahuika is the mother of the fire, and her children, living in her fingers are the first rays of light which shoot over the sky in the mornings. In order to ask for one of her fingers he visits Mahuika, but he deceives her, and she, to punish him, sets fire to the world. Out of this fire--the second Sunrise--emerges the flying Maui, flying as sun-eagle over the heavens, and hurling himself at last into the ocean.

マフイカは火の母であり、その指に住む子らは、朝に空を走る最初の光の筋である。その指の一つを乞うためにマウイはマフイカを訪ねるが、欺いてしまい、マフイカは罰として世界に火をかける。この火——第二の日の出——から、飛ぶマウイが現れ、太陽の鷲として天を飛び、とうとう自ら大海へ身を投げる。

That was the first sunset.

それが最初の日没であった。