Henry the Fourth, For SAEKI Shizuto and Shakespeare
TANAKA Akio
In my mid-20s, I had worked at a high school in Tachikawa, Tokyo. One day, after teaching class, I waited the colleague at the physics study room, who was two year older than me and the best friend at the school. At the room he was absent and I waited sitting the chair and began to read the bringing book for the time if he was absent.
The book was the compact-sized complete works of Shakespeare. In those days, I had time to time to time read Shakespeare for researching what was poetry or verse’s essence. I had strongly wanted what was verse or how verse differs from prose . But never I had grasped the tail of it.
Several papers and books were already read at that time. Some poets' and researchers' writings were also looked through. But I had perfectly never made sense of it on verse. It was the very precious theme for me on the way studying language. For example, what is the rhyme of verse or what difference occurs between verse and prose? So I decided to read Shakespeare which seemed the most typical verse work in the world.
When I was reading Shakespeare on the laboratory-work desk in my friend study room, I suddenly understood perfectly the essence of verse by the beginning of the play, King Henry the Fourth’s saying. It became one of the biggest pivotal points of my life.
The complete works was bought at old book store at Kanda, Tokyo. Its jacket was dark red and very light in weight. Probably the book were so old and enough dried up. I liked its classical binding.
On the colleague returning the room, my mind was swaying for a while with my happy finding. The friend's name was SAEKI Shizuto who always taught me the many wisdom related with life and study by his sensitive talent to nature and universe. He was teaching geology in the high school.
Tokyo
14 December 2012
20 July 2015 Revised
Sekinan Research Field of anguage
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