Difficult one

I must confess to failure with the following poem by Nagatsuka Takashi:

垂乳根の母が釣りたる青蚊帳を
　　　すがしといねつたるみたれども
(長塚節 1879-1915)

It's especially the second half that caused me problems. I think that may be the last of the tanka.

Umaoi no

馬追虫の/髭のそよろに/来る秋は
　　　まなこを閉じて/想い見るべし
(長塚節 1879-1915)

umaoi no / hige no soyoro ni / kuru aki ha
　　　manako wo tojite / omoimirubeshi
(Nagatsuka Takashi 1879-1915)

the autumn that comes
with the rustling
of a bush-cricket's whiskers
　　　is best imagined
　　　with eyes closed


That 'beshi' at the end is the same as the modern 'beki', Wikipedia notes in passing in the middle of this article about dialects. Of course you can't always trust Wikipedia, but it seems to make sense in the poem. The season word in this poem is the 'bush-cricket' (or 'katydid' if you prefer, or 'long-horned grasshopper' though that seems a little long), which is connected with the beginning of autumn. However, it seems a little odd that the season in this poem is imagined, so that we might wonder what season we should be imagining autumn from.

I hope that I'm correct in translating 'hige' as 'whiskers', as bush-crickets don't seem to have anything particularly closely resembling whiskers, though if you look at this picture you can kind of imagine them. The rustling of these whiskers is going to be pretty difficult to notice, so I wonder if that's part of what the poem is saying, that nature is better imagined than seen. On the other hand, the poem might be saying that autumn is a particularly subtle season by nature, compared with other seasons.

Alternate searches:

'kuru aki wa' 'manako o tojite' 'omoimiru beshi'

Ottosei

おっとせい/氷に眠る/さいわいを
　　　我も今知る/おもしろきかな
(山川登美子 1879-1909)

ottosei / koori ni nemuru / saiwai wo
　　　ware mo ima shiru / omoshiroki kana
(Yamakawa Tomiko 1879-1909)

I now also know
the happiness
of a seal
　　　sleeping on ice:
　　　how amusing!


We might wonder, like this Japanese blogger, whether sleeping on ice can come to feel amusing (or interesting or funny) at some point. If it wasn't for that last comment about how 'amusing' it is, I would probably have translated 'saiwai' as 'good fortune' or something similar. There seems to be something more going on in the poem than simple amusement though. What is the happiness of a seal sleeping on ice? Against a bleak backdrop, the seal sleeps, protected by its fur from the harsh environment. An image of self-sufficiency, or am I going too far in my interpretation on too little evidence?

Another Japanese blogger suggests (as far as I understand) that Yamakawa may have been amused by finding happiness in the unshowy everyday. But the fact that the seal is sleeping would also seem to be of some significance. The world is harsh, but it is shut out, because the seal is sleeping through it. So I return to self-sufficiency, except it's not only fur that protects the seal, but also loss of consciousness through sleep that is the only way to happiness in this world. How amusing?

Alternate searches:

'saiwai o'

Sore to naku

それとなく/紅き花みな/友にゆずり
　　　そむきて泣きて/忘れ草つむ
(山川登美子 1879-1909)

sore to naku / akaki hana mina / tomo ni yuzuri
　　　somukite nakite / wasuregusa tsumu
(Yamakawa Tomiko 1879-1909)

discreetly leaving
my friend all
the red flowers:
　　　turning, crying
　　　I pick forgetting grass


First of all there's an alternate translation on this page (scroll down). As usual, where there's no romaji version I didn't find this until after my own translation attempt, and it's tough to argue with Kenneth Rexroth and a Japanese collaborator. Still, 'tomo' sounds to me more like 'friend' than 'lover' if we leave out what we know about real-world relationships (though I do acknowledge that it may have had different connotations at the time of writing). As for other subtexts, this Japanese website states unequivocally, the 'friend' is Yosano Akiko and the 'red flowers' represent Yosano Tekkan. In other words, Yamakawa stepped aside to let Yosano Akiko marry Yosano Tekkan.

At the end of the poem, there is a mention of 'wasuregusa' (literally forget-grass) a commonly occurring flower in Japanese poetry, symbolising sadness and wanting to forget (briefly mentioned at the bottom of the Japanese Wiki entry). In English it is somewhat less poetically known as the daylily. As with the poem in the previous entry there is an insistence on not revealing feelings that goes against the revelation that writing a poem often implies. Once again it would be interesting to know if the poem was published.

Alternate searches:

'wasure-gusa tsumu'

Kami-nagaki

髪ながき/少女とうまれ/しろ百合に
　　　額は伏せつつ/君をこそ思え
(山川登美子 1879-1909)

kami-nagaki / otome to umare / shiro yuri ni
　　　nuka ha fusetsutsu / kimi wo koso omoe
(Yamakawa Tomiko 1879-1909)

being born a
long-haired girl,
hiding my face
　　　in lilies
　　　I yearn for you


There's something odd about the idea of a girl born with long hair, but the 'ki' ending of 'nagaki' clearly attaches it to 'otome' (if you're not sure about this, look up 'rentai-kei' on google). Even if the phrasing is odd, it's easy to see what she means though. We get the idea of a traditional woman's role in courtship, though the fact that Yamakawa wrote this poem means she wasn't as shrinking as all that. Yamakawa tends to get mentioned most in connection with the more famous Yosano Akiko, as well as Yosano Tekkan, whose poems I looked at in earlier entries. Yosano Akiko (née Ho) married Yosano Tekkan, but Yamakawa was the other point on their love triangle, and is said to have been Akiko's lover as well as Tekkan's.

I wonder if I'd like this poem less if I knew nothing about Yamakawa's life. There seems to be more subtext in Japanese poetry than English poetry in general, and knowing under what circumstances a poem was written is often important to appreciating the meaning. If this is a kind of 'courtship' poem (for want of a better word) for Yosano Tekkan, it becomes more interesting in the gap between what it's saying and what it's doing. Unfortunately Yamakawa died young, of tuberculosis at the age of 29.

Alternate searches:

'kaminagaki', 'nuka ha fusetsutsu', 'kimi o koso omoe'

Yuyake-zora

夕焼空/焦げきわまれる/下にして
　　　氷らんとする/湖の静けさ
(島木赤彦 1876-1926)

yuyake-zora / koge-kiwamareru / shita ni shite
　　　kooran to suru / umi no shizukesa
(Shimaki Akahiko 1876-1926)

sunset sky
burnt to a crisp -
bring it down:
　　　the quiet of the
　　　unfrozen lake


If you can tell me what is meant by 'shita ni shite' here, I'd be most grateful. Usually it either means 'put something down', or 'put [eg the top part] at the bottom'. This is a roundabout way of saying that I'm not confident about this translation, and though I've had problems before, it's the first time I've come out with a result I find so unsatisfying. The first two lines are straightforward enough to understand, even if there's no obvious translation for 'koge-kiwamareru'. There's the passive form of the literary 'kiwamu' here, meaning the same as 'kiwameru', 'to do something to an extreme', so that the meaning is 'burnt to an extreme'. The last two lines also seem straightforward enough, with the 'umi' pronunciation for 'lake' presumably poetically licensed.

The problem is that these two parts of the poem seem to be self-sufficient, so I can't see the purpose of the middle section (perhaps clear from my translation attempt). The only interpretation I can manage is that the burnt sky should be put into the lake to cool off, and I think it must be something along those lines, but I also think there's a key part of the meaning I'm missing. Unfortunately, I can't find any commentary on this poem on the net, though it does appear many times in Japanese, so it must be popular.

Alternate searches:

'yuyakezora' 'yuuyake-zora' 'yuuyakezora' 'kogekiwamareru' 'koran to suru'

Rinshitsu ni

隣室に/書よむ子らの/声きけば
　　　心に沁みて/生きたかりけり
(島木赤彦 1876-1926)

rinshitsu ni / fumiyomu kora no / koe kikeba
　　　kokoro ni shimite / ikitakarikeri
(Shimaki Akahiko 1876-1926)

hearing children
in the next
room reading:
　　　pierced in the heart -
　　　I want to live!


It's easy to get the point of this poem, especially when you know that the poet died shortly afterwards from stomach cancer, at the age of 49 (Japanese link). I imagine Shimaki longing for the invincibility children have, not thinking that death applies to them, while dying himself of a disease that normally (as far as I know) would come later in life. But regardless of when it would normally come, there's not necessarily a sense of resignation. A haiku or tanka written by a dying poet is called a '絶詠' (zetsuei), I have just discovered, and something about these kanji (the first associated for me with 'cutting off' or 'extinction', and the second with 'composition') brings the idea of creativity in the face of death home to me more forcefully than a 'death poem'.

The 'keri' suffix of 'ikitakarikeri' is used for poetic emphasis, so that I think my exclamation mark is justified. With this one word filling up the last seven syllables, it seems to also add emphasis simply through its length. There's an interesting discussion on a Japanese blog of the poem, particularly focussing on 'shimiru', and there's also a translation. The blogger notes that 'shimiru' and 'pierce' have different nuances, with 'shimiru' having connections with 'soaking in' and 'absorption' as well as 'piercing', though finally decides that there is no better word to use. If you look at the translation you'll notice 'kokoro' is also translated as 'soul'. However, when we talk about being pierced in the heart, we're not always talking literally, and sometimes the English 'heart' covers the soul and spirit in the same way that 'kokoro' does.