木

解説

付記

ある地にて私は「ゴゴの木」を見に連れられた。 かねて噂を耳にしていたが、見るところ特筆すべきものはなかった。 すると村の長は答えた―― 「この木はいま実をつけていない。 だが季節が来れば、その枝に吊されるであろう―― 陛下を侮辱したすべての者が。」 さらに聞けば「ゴゴ」とは、 我らの言葉で「ろくでなし」を意味するという。 ―― 『東方旅行記』

管理人コメント

Original

A tall vegetable intended by nature to serve as a penal apparatus, though through a miscarriage of justice most trees bear only a negligible fruit, or none at all. When naturally fruited, the tree is a beneficient agency of civilization and an important factor in public morals. In the stern West and the sensitive South its fruit (white and black respectively) though not eaten, is agreeable to the public taste and, though not exported, profitable to the general welfare. That the legitimate relation of the tree to justice was no discovery of Judge Lynch (who, indeed, conceded it no primacy over the lamp-post and the bridge-girder) is made plain by the following passage from Morryster, who antedated him by two centuries:

Additional notes

While in yt londe I was carried to see ye Ghogo tree, whereof I had hearde moch talk; but sayynge yt I saw naught remarkabyll in it, ye hed manne of ye villayge where it grewe made answer as followeth: Ye tree is not nowe in fruite, but in his seasonne you shall see dependynge fr. his braunches all soch as have affroynted ye King his Majesty. And I was furder tolde yt ye worde "Ghogo" sygnifyeth in yr tong ye same as "rapscal" in our owne. Trauvells in ye Easte