William Elliot Griffis (September 17, 1843 – February 5, 1928) was an American orientalist, Congregational minister, lecturer, and prolific author.
Published works
1882 -- Corea, the Hermit Nation
…………………
William Elliot Griffis, Corea the Hermit Nation, Kessinger, 2004.
ウィリアム・グリフィス『隠者の国・朝鮮』
This is a good specimen of Corean varnish-work carried into history. The rough facts are smoothed over by that well-applied native lacquer, which is said to resemble gold to the eyes. The official gloss has been smeared over more modern events with equal success, and even defeat is turned into golden victory. (pp. 150-151) これは朝鮮人による歴史の塗装作業の良い見本である。つらい現実には国産塗料を塗りたくり、黄金に見せかける。さらに後世の事件に対しても、公的な虚飾が巧妙に施され、敗戦すら輝かしい勝利に変えられる。
In the capital, as they had been along the road, the Dutchmen were like wild beasts on show. Crowds flocked to see the white-faced and red-bearded foreigners. They must have appeared to the natives as Punch looks to English children. The women were even more anxious than men to get a good look. Every one was especially curious to see the Dutchmen drink, for it was generally believed that they tucked their noses up over their ears when they drank. (p. 171) ソウルに護送されたオランダ人一行は、まるで見せ物の野獣のようだった。白い顔と赤い髭を持つこの外国人を見に、群衆が押し寄せた。男たちよりも女たちが、よく見える場所を確保しようと必死になった。誰もがオランダ人がものを飲むのを見たがった。西洋人はものを飲むとき、鼻を耳より上につまみ上げると信じられていたからである。
Chō-sen is represented as a human being, of whom the king is the head, the nobles the body, and the people the legs and feet. The breast and belly are full, while both head and lower limbs are gaunt and shrunken. The nobles not only drain the life-blood of the people by their rapacity, but they curtail the royal prerogative. The nation is suffering from a congestion, verging upon a dropsical condition of over-officialism. (p. 229) 朝鮮は人にたとえられ、王はその頭、貴族は胴、人民は足である。胸と腹は膨れる一方、頭と下肢はやせ細っている。貴族はその強欲で人民の生き血をすするのみならず、王の大権をも侵している。国は充血を起こし、官僚主義の浮腫を患っている。
The vocabulary of torture is sufficiently copious to stamp Chō-sen as still a semi-civilized nation. The inventory of the court and prison comprises iron chains, bamboos for beating the back, a paddle-shaped implement for inflicting blows upon the buttocks, switches for whipping the calves till the flesh is ravelled, ropes for sawing the flesh and bodily organs, manacles, stocks, and boards to strike against the knees and skin-bones. (p. 234)
After their marriage, the women are inaccessible. They are nearly always confined to their apartments, nor can they even look out in the streets without permission of their lords.So strict is this rule that fathers have on occasions killed their daughters, husbands their wives, and wives have committed suicide when strangers have touched them even with their fingers. (p. 245)
Corean architecture is in a very primitive condition. The castles, fortifications, temples, monasteries and public buildings cannot approach in magnificence those of Japan or China. The country, though boasting hoary antiquity, has few ruins in stone. The dwellings are tiled or thatched houses, almost invariably one story high. In the smaller towns there are not arranged in regular streets, but scattered here hand there. Even in the cities and capital the streets are narrow and tortuous. (p. 262)
The Corean rustic is, as a rule, illiterate. Probably only about four out of ten males of the farming class can read either Chinese or Corean, but counting in the women it is estimated that about eighty-five per cent of the people can neither read nor write, though the percentage varies greatly with the locality. (p. 444)
Corea has no samurai. She lacks what Japan has always had - a cultured body of men, superbly trained in both mind and body, the soldier and scholar in one, who held to a high ideal of loyalty, patriotism, and sacrifice for country. (p. 450)
