【狂言小唄】『笑いの呪文』（超絶誤訳・音声変換）原作：ヴェリミール・フレーブニコフ

 　我が国は西側陣営なので、ロシアの情報はなかなか入ってこない。いや、「敵側」のフィルターがかったものばかり、という印象だ。大昔、成人祝いに『ドストエフスキー全集』を古書で買おうとしたほどのロシア文学ファンである小生は、そこで、ロシア詩でも朗読してみるか、と調べるなかで出会ったのがヴェリミール・フレーブニコフの『笑いの呪文』だった。

　しかし、学生時代、せいぜいドイツ語を第二外国語として学んだだけの小生には、ロシア語の音読などハードが高過ぎる。それでもアプリ再生で練習を重ねるうちに、「超絶誤訳・音声変換」で読むことを思い付いた。難しいロシア語発音を日本語に当てて、忠実な翻訳ではない、全く別の詩作を試みることにしたのである。折りしもイラン戦争中で、そんな情勢にも触発を受けることとなった。

　狂言風に詠んでみた。（謳ってみた）。もともと「笑いの呪文」だけに、狂言が合っていると思った。動画は映像を添えられるので、言葉と絵のコラボが互いの「語られない部分」を補ってくれる。そのギャップが際立つものが出来たと思う。

　As our country belongs to the Western bloc, information from Russia is not easily accessible. Or rather, much of what we receive feels filtered through the lens of an “enemy.” As someone who has long been fond of Russian literature—so much so that I once considered buying a second-hand complete works of Fyodor Dostoevsky as a coming-of-age gift—I found myself wondering if I might try reading Russian poetry aloud. It was in that process that I encountered Velimir Khlebnikov’s "Incantation by Laughter."

　However, having studied only German as a second foreign language in my student days, attempting to read Russian aloud was far beyond my abilities. Still, as I practiced by repeatedly listening to app-based playback, I came upon an idea: to read the poem through what I call an “ultra-mistranslation,” a phonetic transformation. By mapping the difficult Russian sounds onto Japanese, I decided to attempt something entirely different from a faithful translation—a new poem altogether.

　At the time, the war in Iran was ongoing, and that situation, too, had some influence on my thinking.

I chose to perform it in the style of Kyōgen. Given that the work itself is an “Incantation of laughter,” I felt that Kyōgen was an appropriate form. Since video allows for the addition of visual elements, the interplay between language and imagery can compensate for what remains unspoken in each. I believe the resulting work highlights precisely that gap.