冥府

解説

付記

古代人にとってハデスの観念は、我々の“地獄”とは同義ではなかった。 多くの高名な人物がそこに快適に住んでいた。 エリュシオンの野もまたハデスの一部で――後にパリへ移された。 欽定訳聖書の翻訳中、 多数派の学者は「アイデス」を“地獄”と訳すことを決めた。 だが少数派の一人が、記録からその語をこっそり消し去った。 次の会合で、ソールズベリー主教が突然立ち上がり叫んだ。 「諸君、ここで誰かが“地獄”を削っている！」 その逸話のおかげで、英語に「to raze hell（大騒ぎする）」という 不滅の表現が加わったのだ。

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Original

The lower world; the residence of departed spirits; the place where the dead live.

Additional notes

Among the ancients the idea of Hades was not synonymous with our Hell, many of the most respectable men of antiquity residing there in a very comfortable kind of way. Indeed, the Elysian Fields themselves were a part of Hades, though they have since been removed to Paris. When the Jacobean version of the New Testament was in process of evolution the pious and learned men engaged in the work insisted by a majority vote on translating the Greek word "Aides" as "Hell"; but a conscientious minority member secretly possessed himself of the record and struck out the objectional word wherever he could find it. At the next meeting, the Bishop of Salisbury, looking over the work, suddenly sprang to his feet and said with considerable excitement: "Gentlemen, somebody has been razing 'Hell' here!" Years afterward the good prelate's death was made sweet by the reflection that he had been the means (under Providence) of making an important, serviceable and immortal addition to the phraseology of the English tongue.