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.