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.

Kagayaka ni

輝やかに/わが行くかたも/恋うる子の
　　　在るかたも指せ/黄金向日葵
(与謝野鉄幹 1873-1935)

kagayaka ni / waga yuku kata mo / kouru ko no
　　　aru kata mo sase / kogane higuruma
(Yosano Tekkan 1873-1935)

brightly point
at me walking,
and where the
　　　girl I love is,
　　　golden sunflower


I mentioned before that I'm finding the tanka more difficult than the haiku, and I hope it's clear that I'm speculating sometimes. With this poem I'm speculating too. I wasn't too sure about 'kata' but assumed 'waga yuku kata' is 'me walking', whereas 'aru kata' is 'where something is'. I've made a big assumption that 'ko' means 'girl', when it could also mean 'child, and in the famous poem I linked to in the last entry, it was used by Yosano about himself (obviously male). So consider yourself properly warned that this may not be the correct translation, or if you want to put me right, acknowledge that I didn't present it 100% confidently! One final point to note about the language is that the kanji for sunflower used here, '向日葵', are normally pronounced 'himawari', and 'higuruma' usually has the kanji, '日車'. But poets can make these aesthetic choices, and especially in older writing, the use of kanji is not so standardised.

Even if I'm not sure whether it's correct, I enjoy the version of this poem I've arrived at. The sunflower, held back by Yosano until the end of the poem, becomes the go-between for the two lovers, encouraging the poet on his journey. Incidentally, Yosano Tekkan married Yosano Akiko who has since become more famous than him, but she died after my cut-off point for this blog, so I won't be looking at her poems. Many of these are available on the net anyway, including her most famous tanka with its confident female sexuality at the top of this page, and an English translation of the anti-war poem '君死にたもうことなかれ' (kimi shinitamou koto nakare).

Oozora no

大空の/塵とはいかが/思うべき
　　　熱き涙の/ながるるものを
(与謝野鉄幹 1873-1935)

oozora no / chiri to ha ikaga / omou beki
　　　atsuki namida no / nagaruru mono wo
(Yosano Tekkan 1873-1935)

how should I
think of the
dust in the sky?
　　　something to make
　　　me cry hot tears...


I can't find much in the way of analysis of this poem on the web, either in English or Japanese. One thing I discovered was that it appears with '思ふ' rather than '思う' when it does appear in Japanese, though as the latter is in my book, I'll stick with that. I've noticed a lot of old texts have 'ふ', where in contemporary language you'd expect 'う', and I think I've read somewhere that it's down to changes in pronunciation. I'm a little doubtful whether pronunciation has changed that much in the last hundred years (though possibly it has), and I think the older form is used for literary effect. Returning to the poem, what little I did find was a connection between 'the dust in the sky' and hay fever. On this page is the poem next to some pictures of flowers, while on this page another poem with the same phrase (possibly influenced by Tekkan's) explicitly references hay fever or '花粉症' (kafunshou).

It's a little off-topic, but hay fever's a big problem in Japan today, though this is mainly to do with planting too many cedars after the war, so it's not really connected. Besides, though hay fever seems to be the catalyst, this tanka is surely about more than just the effects of a seasonal allergy. Having said that, I can't interpret what exactly it is about the dust in the sky that makes the poet cry such hot tears. In a famous poem, Tekkan concludes that he is 'sick at heart' (or possibly something stronger like 'in anguish'). On the same page of the book I've linked to we see that Tekkan thinks of himself sometimes as a Goethe or a Byron, and there's something of that romanticism in the above poem.

Alternate searches:

'ozora no' 'omo beki' 'omoubeki' 'omobeki' 'nagaruru mono o'

Oritachite

おり立ちて/今朝の寒さを/驚きぬ
　　露しとしとと/柿の落葉深く
(伊藤左千夫 1864-1913)

oritachite / kesa no samusa wo / odorokinu
　　tsuyu shito shito to / kaki no ochiba fukaku
(Ito Sachio 1864-1913)

going down,
amazed by
the morning's cold...
　　the dew and deeply piled
　　persimmon leaves


As with an earlier haiku I looked at the 'nu' of 'odorokinu' isn't negative, though here with 'odorokinu' rather than 'odorokanu' it's a bit clearer. I like the way this comes between the section about the cold, and the added details of dew and leaves in the Japanese original, but English word order means this disappears in translation. When I was wondering how to translate 'shito shito', which usually means 'gentle' as in 'gentle rain', I was happy to see that the final line needed a lot of words in English, and so I missed out the gentleness of the dew altogether. The last section in Japanese is actually longer than normal, this poem being (5-7-5-7-9) rather than (5-7-5-7-7). A Japanese middle school test (with answers) notes that this kind of poem is said to be '字余り' (jiamari), if you were wondering.

The test also says that the tanka is '三句切れ' (sankugire), or in other words that the pause would naturally come after the third section 'odorokinu'. I'm pretty sure this is where it would traditionally always come, and the previous Ryokan tanka are the same, though in the other Ito tanka I looked at the pause comes after the second section. Judging by Google, this tanka comes up a lot on tests, as there was another test in the top 10 results for my search. I'm not that impressed with this second test, which is multiple choice, matching tanka with their meanings. Is it a) a work where the solitary narrator's heartbreak is revealed in scenery depicted like a painting b) a work where...? Interpretation and multiple choice don't go well together.

Alternate searches:

'kesa no samusa o' 'tsuyu shitoshito to'

Ushikai ga

牛飼が/歌よむ時に/世の中の
　　　新しき歌/大いにおこる
(伊藤左千夫 1864-1913)

ushikai ga / uta yomu toki ni / yo no naka no
　　　atarashiki uta / ooi ni okoru
(Ito Sachio 1864-1913)

when a
cowherd composes
poems
　　　new poetry
　　　will flourish


I do these translations a bit before I write the entries, and usually I can find the websites again that have helped me in the translation, but in this case I can't... Somewhere on the internet is a poem which has a translation of the above tanka in the middle, which was helpful for my understanding, but I've lost the website. It reminded me that 'yomu' can mean 'compose' as well as 'read', though as I've slightly edited my translation (since looking at other sites) in the process of completing this entry, I'm not sure whether it was entirely correct.

This Japanese interpretation has led me to the above translation. There seems to be some kind of socialist message that when poems are written not as a diversion for the leisured classes, but by ordinary people with real jobs like cowherds, then the poetry revolution will happen and a genuinely new style of poetry will come about. Ito came from a farming family himself. However, the message is subverted by coming in a very traditional tanka form, and this leads the Japanese writer from the linked website to say that Ito has written a meta-tanka. Finally, while I think it's a convincing interpretation, the idea of cowherds not usually writing poems very much goes against the Western pastoral tradition where shepherds are always writing poems. Either the Japanese tradition is different, or I've misinterpreted the poem...

Inishie wo

いにしえを/思えば夢か/うつつかも
　　　夜はしぐれの/雨を聴きつつ
(良寛 1758-1831)

inishie wo / omoeba yume ka / utsutsu kamo
　　　yoru ha shigure no / ame wo kikitsutsu
(Ryokan 1758-1831)

thinking of
the past - a dream?
reality?
　　　listening to the
　　　rain at night


This is a wonderful poem, and I'd suggest again that it's a poem of solitude, where the boundaries between dream and reality become haziest. 'Shigure' is strictly a shower in late autumn or early winter, though I haven't included that detail in my translation. I managed to find other translations on the net. The first has a different first line and is confusingly attributed to a much earlier poet, but this seems to be an error. There are also two (1 2) with no Japanese I found through creative googling (ryokan rain dream). The second is in the 'unsourced' section of the page. You'll come to your own conclusions, of course, but I feel there's too much added in these translations, especially the decisions on tense. To be specific all three have the narrator listening to the rain in the present.

However, there's an interesting comment on the poem I found on a Japanese site*. This comment seems to suggest, as far as I understand it, that the narrator may be remembering listening to the rain in the past, prompted not by present rain, but by the wind in the pine trees, or the flowing of the river, or the rustling of leaves. This interpretation maintains the ambiguity, so that we don't know whether the rain itself is past or present, dream or reality. Ryokan is quite an interesting character, and you can see his Wikipedia entry here.

* View - (character encoding: Japanese (Shift_JIS) and the opening is written 'いにしへを思へば' if you want to find it on the page)

Alternate searches:

'inishie o' 'yoru wa shigure no' 'ame o kikitsutsu'

Yo no naka ni

世の中に/まじらぬとには/あらねども
　　　ひとり遊びぞ/我はまされる
(良寛 1758-1831)

yo no naka ni / majiranu to ni ha / aranedomo
　　　hitori asobi zo / ware ha masareru
(Ryokan 1758-1831)

it's not that
I don't want to mix
with the world
　　　fun on my own -
　　　I'm better at it


I don't know why, but the tanka I've looked at seem to be far more difficult to translate and interpret than haiku, though it might be because the haiku is so short it largely does away with grammar. In this case there are other translations on the net (here and here), though for me the transliteration was a bit strange, so I didn't find them immediately. My translation is slightly different than the first for the last two lines, because it seems to me they mean 'I'm better at having fun on my own than with other people' instead of the similar 'I'm better at amusing myself than other people are at amusing me' the alternative translation suggests. After all, 'hitori asobi' is literally 'playing alone'.

However, the second translation is more convincing, and I wonder whether my translation would be more correct with 'alone is better' as the last line. The difficulty for me to choose is that 'ware ha masareru' seems to translate literally as 'I'm better', and the two possibilities I've suggested are both subtly different. If you know how best to interpret these last two lines let me know.

Alternate searches:

'majiranu to ni wa' 'ware wa masareru'

Cho no shita

蝶の舌/ゼンマイに似る/暑さかな
(芥川龍之介 1892-1927)

cho no shita / zenmai ni niru / atsusa kana
(Akutagawa Ryunosuke 1892-1927)

butterfly's tongue
looks like a spring,
the heat!


How close do you have to get to a butterfly to be able to see its tongue? As I've mentioned before I'm rather ignorant of the natural world, but if you want to see a butterfly's tongue this is what they look like. Kind of like a spring I suppose, all coiled up like that. I'm trying to think of the right word to describe this poem. Psychedelic? Hallucinogenic? Phantasmagoric, perhaps? The heat seems to play its part in the transformation of the natural into something mechanical. We might also consider that the butterfly is a symbol of metamorphosis, except there's something unnatural in any further transformation from its final state.

I think the contrast in this haiku between different writing systems really works. Setting the kanji butterfly, '蝶', against the katakana spring, 'ゼンマイ', there's a real sense of a clash between ancient and modern. I don't always find this kind of thing convincing, but in this case '蝶' just looks pretty, and 'ゼンマイ' utilitarian, and I can't explain it any better than that. I really enjoyed this haiku, but it's the last one in the book I'm going to look at, and the next entry will move on to tanka.

Alternate searches:

'chou no shita'

Kai mo naki

かいもなき/眠り薬や/夜半の秋
(芥川龍之介 1892-1927)

kai mo naki / nemuri-gusuri ya / yowa no aki
(Akutagawa Ryunosuke 1892-1927)

ineffective
sleeping drugs:
autumn midnight


This haiku is rather disturbing if you know that Akutagawa committed suicide by taking an overdose of Veronal, a sleeping aid in the form of a white powder. However, I can't find any mention of the poem on the net, either in English or Japanese, so any speculation on how it might connect with his death would remain speculation. (When I can't find the poem in Japanese I begin to wonder if it exists, though it's there in the book in front of me). Disregarding the biographical information there's also something slightly humorous about it, with the two lines of build-up and the last line of punch-line. Having said this I often find humour where none is intended.

I didn't know the expression 'kai mo nai' before reading this haiku and it baffled me at first. It's one of those cases where having the kanji would have made things a lot easier, and in this case the kanji are '甲斐', though it seems from the dictionary to usually be written in hiragana. Apparently it means something like 'worth' as well as 'effect', so while I think 'ineffective' is the most accurate translation, there's the idea of pointlessness hovering about in the background too. It's the second sleepless haiku from Akutagawa, and if haiku often seem to be about solitary experience, there's not much more solitary than being awake when everyone else is asleep.

Alternate searches:

'nemurigusuri ya'

Seki hitotsu

咳ひとつ/赤子のしたる/夜寒かな
(芥川龍之介 1892-1927)

seki hitotsu / akago no shitaru / yosamu kana
(Akutagawa Ryunosuke 1892-1927)

cough
from a baby:
cold night


As with an earlier poem, there is 'shitaru', which I said in a previous post seemed to be the same as 'shiteiru'. However, cracking open the classical Japanese grammar books, it looks like it may actually be the rentai form (which is the form of verbs and adjectives that comes before nouns) of the suffix 'tari' which makes the verb 'perfect'. This 'perfect' verb form is different from the 'past', though it may sometimes have the same meaning. I'm not sure this greatly affects the meaning of the haiku, but possibly it could be translated as 'a baby/coughed:/cold night'. I suppose this does give a slightly different impression, even if I'm still not sure whether it's more accurate.

I've decided to follow international copyright on this blog by not looking at any writers who died less than 70 years ago. I know it might look a little over-scrupulous, especially as Japanese copyright law is only 50 years, but it's just my little whim. Because of this, as I work my way through my book of poems, the haiku poets I'm looking at are dying more and more tragically young. Akutagawa is the last haiku poet I'll look at, and he committed suicide at 35 after making a huge impact on Japanese literature, mainly with his short stories. I guess he's most famous internationally for writing the stories the film Rashomon was based on, but in Japan he's seen as one of the fathers of modern literature and Japan's most prestigious literary prize is named after him.