Can the Spirit of Haiku be Translated ?

Can the Spirit of Haiku be Translated ?

By

Susumu Takiguchi

Chairman, The World Haiku Club




This lecture was first delivered at the following academic

conference at the University of Oxford.

Study Day “Traduire la Contrainte”
TRIO, St. Hugh’s College, Oxford
19th June 1999

*

ABSTRACT

1 In its final analysis, translating poems belongs to the same act as the interpreting of them, i.e. “changing the words(1)” at the risk of changing their meaning. (Analogies: a film version of a novel, copy or pastiche of original paintings. (1) A. C. Bradley: Oxford Lectures on Poetry, 1909

2 Therefore, we are not talking about creating something which is identical with, or equivalent to, the original except for the language used (i.e. “perfect translation” which does not exist). The result is more of “approximation” to the original verse.

3 translating poems from Japanese into English (and other languages) is far more difficult than is the case between European languages because of significant linguistic, prosodic and cultural differences.

4 Of that translating Japanese haiku into English is particularly difficult because of: -

(1) Visible (formal) constraints (this aspect is easier to imitate or assimilate)
a. brevity (not enough information to base the translation on)
b. vagueness of Japanese (i.e. words, or phrases with (significantly) more meanings than one,
allowing many different interpretations)
c. grammatical constraints
d. haiku rules which are at odds with English poetic sentiment and sensibilities

(2) Invisible (non-formal) constraints (this aspect is more difficult to covey)
a. hai-i (haiku feelings, spirit)
b. cultural differences (e.g. homogenous, collective society versus plural, individualistic
society)
c. difference of perception

5 On the more positive note: -

(1) In spite of the visible and invisible constraints, good (if not “perfect”) translations are still possible and have actually been done. They need to be encouraged rather than dismissed. Like good portrait paintings, similarity should not be the primary end but “the truth” should be.

(2) In some instances, English version could arguably be even “better” than the original Japanese haiku from the point of a good poem. A product of cultural “accident”. (Analogies: Some reproductions of paintings look better than the original)

(3) The essence of the original haiku, its strength, intensity or feelings, can sometimes penetrate through the linguistic and cultural barriers when the haiku touches the soul and sensibilities common to all human beings. (e.g. special joy of the advent of spring; bereavement; feelings about one’s own child etc., in the abstract, joy, sadness, loneliness, love of nature)

(4) In a sense, translation of haiku can be regarded as creating a new piece of poetic work, using the original as a “material”, just as a TV version of “Pride and Prejudice” should be regarded as a new creation rather than a faithful version of the original novel. However, this would run the risk of deviating from the severe discipline needed for any translation by allowing too much freedom to the translator.



Gist of the Content

Comments on “Old pond” haiku
ditto on “kare eda ya” haiku
Anne Collie translation

good translations and bad translations

Visible constraints
season words
5-7-5 (onsei=syllables, haku, or a beat=jion haku is a better term than onsei, which means syllable, not applicable to Japanese haku, the smallest indivisible unit of aural sound; monosyllable, dissyllable, trisyllable, polysyllable, syllabicate, syllabify, syllabize, )
kireji (cutting words, caesura but that is not all...)
kumatagari (enjambment)
lineation
Vagueness of Japanese
old Japanese (still used extensively in haiku)
reversed syntax
other word order
other grammatical constraints (determining the subject, dropped subjects, singular/plural, taigen-dome, tohchi-ho, etc.)
rhyme

Invisible constraints
hai’i (haiku spirit, or haiku feeling)
haigon (words having haiku feeling)
yojo (lingering echo of feeling, “aftertaste”)
fuga no makoto (poetic honesty, sincerity and truth)
furyu (special taste of artistic and poetic nature)
wabi, sabi, karumi
honkadori (allusion to a classical poems)
cultural constraints (indigenous, local events, music, art)
human senses (smell, colour, sound, tactile sense etc.)

Anne Collie’s paper
A case study







“You cannot take an egg out of a cake that has been baked!” Marjorie Boulton: The Anatomy of Poetry, 1953 [Is Western haiku an egg out of a Japanese case that has been baked?]


“Prajna [intuition] is ever seeking unity on the grandest possible scale, so that there could be no further unity in any sense. Prajna in pure act, pure experience.” (Suzuki Daisetsu, Reason and Intuition in Buddhist Philosophy,” in Essays in East-West Philosophy, ed. By Moore, Charles A. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. 1951
[Good Western haiku is only possible because of the prajna in the poets not because of the intricate web of haiku rules they have spent most of their time to fabricate]



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An Oxford professor of poetry, A. C. Bradley once said, “In true poetry it is…impossible to express the meaning in any but its own words, or to change the words without changing the meaning.” (A. C. Bradley: Oxford Lectures on Poetry, 1909) This has the same resonance with T. S. Eliot who, when receiving a question from my own wife when she was a school girl as to what the eyes meant in his The Hollow Men poem, replied curtly to the effect that the words he had written meant exactly what they said.

I have a “theory” that if we take Bradley’s remark to its logical conclusion, the popular adage that only poets understand other poets’ poems is not only true but may be an understatement. This is because, somewhere in their mental process it is unavoidable for them to try to “interpret” the original poems of other poets. Such interpretation involves “changing the words”, which is an equivalent of translation, and thus “changing the meaning” of the original. Moreover, poets may not necessarily understand their own poems even! Then, who indeed can understand poems? Only the One up there, or muses?

This theory ceases to be facetious the moment we are confronted with problems of translating poems. Because translation of poems is further down the line of the same mental activity which we call interpretation. There is no avoiding the same issue of interpreting poems correctly, whether they are written by other poets or by oneself. If it is difficult to understand poems in one’s own language, what hope has one got to understand poems of other countries through translation? Thus translating haiku poems seems at first an absolute impossibility.

In this paper, we will follow Bradley’s dictum and look into the issues of translating haiku in a negative way in order to see whether there will be anything positive left, and if so, whether such positive values may lead to any viable literary merits. We will restrict ourselves to dealing with traditional Japanese haiku poems only and also to translating them into English. We shall not deal with translating haiku from English into Japanese, or between any other languages.

It is useful to divide different constraints imposed on translating traditional Japanese haiku (hereafter, only “haiku”) into English into two categories: “visible” , or formal constraints and “invisible”, or non-formal constraints. The former are more of technical nature, the “hard-ware” of haiku and are less difficult to overcome, while the latter are concerned with contents, or the “soft-ware” of haiku, which are far more difficult to deal with, sometimes simply impossible. Both need to be addressed properly for good translations to become attainable. We must heed against a common mistake that if one follows form, then one can attain the substance.

Before going into details of that analysis, let us just see the actual translation of one particular haiku, which is arguably the most famous of all haiku poems the world has ever produced but which is, in my opinion, one of the most misunderstood haiku as well. It is, of course, Basho’s frog haiku.

An old pond
A frog jumps in -
Sound of water. (Geoffrey Bownas and Anthony Thwaite)

The old pond!
A frog jumps in -
Sound of the water. (Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkokai)

An ancient pond!
With a sound from the water
Of the frog as it plunges in. (W. G. Aston)

The old pond, aye! And the sound of a frog leaping into the water. (Basil Hall Chamberlain)

The old pond.
A frog jumps in -
Plop! (R. H. Blyth)

The ancient pond
A frog leaps in
The sound of the water. (Donald Keene)

The old green pond is silent; here the hop
Of a frog plumbs the evening stillness: plop! (Harold Stewart)

The old pond
A frog jumped in,
Kerplunk! (Allen Ginsberg)

Breaking the silence
Of an ancient pond,
A frog jumped into water -
A deep resonance. (Nobuyuki Yuasa)

The quiet pond
A Frog leaps in,
The sound of the water. (Edward G. Seidensticker)

The old pond -
A frog leaps in,
And a splash. (Makoto Ueda)

The still old pond
and as a frog leaps in it
the sound of a splash (Earl Miner)

Ancient pond unstirred
Into which a frog has plunged,
A splash was heard. (Kenneth Yasuda)

Old pond…
a frog leaps in
water’s sound. (William J. Higginson)

Listen! A frog
Jumping into the stillness
Of an ancient pond! (Dorothy Briton)

ancient pond -
a frog jumping into its splash (R. Clarence Matsuo-Allard)

pond
frog
plop! (James Kirkup)

Oh thou unrippled pool of quietness
Upon whose shimmering surface, like the tears
Of olden days, a small batrachian leaps,
The while aquatic sounds assail our ears. (Lindley Williams Hubbell)

There once was a curious frog
Who sat by a pond on a log
And, to see what resulted,
In the pond catapulted
With a water-noise heard round the bog. (in the style of limerick)

A frog who would a-water-sounding go
Into some obscure algae-covered pool
had best be sure no poetasting fool
Is waiting in the weeds and, to his woe,
Commemorates his pluck so all will know
His name and lineage, not for the fine school
He learned to sing at, nor, to make men drool
The flavor of his leg from thigh to toe.
He will not for his mother be remembered,
Nor for his father’s deeds, his honor bright,
Nor for his brother’s leg dismembered,
And eaten by a king with rare delight.
He will be famous simply for the sorta
Noise he makes just when he hits the water. (in the style of sonnet)

Possible misunderstandings: -
· We seldom see a single frog around a pond in spring time (why should it be a single frog and not a number of, or many frogs? Only three translations refer to “frogs” out of 100 in Sato.)
· Frogs tend to jump into the water one after another in spring time (why should it be a single splash?)
· Frogs are noisy in early spring when this haiku is believed to have written. They are a symbol of the merriment, colour, life and bustling movements of early spring. Celebration of life on earth. (why should the scene be doctored and philosophised into the one of stillness, loneliness and tranquility?)
· The first five syllables (the old pond) of the poem were originally suggested by Basho’s disciple, Kikaku, to be yamabuki-ya (Japanese yellow rose, kerria japonica), which had been frequently used in connection with frogs in Japanese poetic tradition. The brilliant yellow of yamabuki is another symbol of the arrival of spring. The episode suggests that there must have been a joyful feeling among the people gathered together with Basho when this poem was written and the melancholy stillness normally attached to this haiku is either an outright mistake, or at least an overplay and an instance of “reading too much into it”. Such interpretation could be an invention by some of Basho’s followers and has been accentuated by over-zealous Western interpreters.
· Some brave commentators in Japan even go so far as to say that this world-famous haiku is not that brilliant and that in fact it is rather mediocre. I personally do not subscribe to them but the haiku may be slightly over-rated. If the comments I have made here were to be established as reasonable, the whole understanding of haiku in the West might well go through a serious rethinking, or worse still a fundamental correction.


Part One: Visible, or Formal Constraints

Since the three most important rules of traditional Japanese haiku are season words (kigo), 5-7-5 syllables (teikei) and cutting words (kireji), let us briefly examine them first.

Season Words (kigo)

Haiku is a nature poetry as the Japanese have long developed a keen perception of changing seasons. Could that perception be translated into English?

1. Difference of kind:
2. Difference of degree: What English people feel hot temperature in summer would be cool to the Japanese skin. What English people feel a mild winter would be a bitter one for the average Japanese.
3. Difference of perception: To most Japanese the moon still means a lot in their perception of beauty and poetic sentiment. The moon is no more than an object of scientific enquiry to many English people. One man’s meat is another man’s poison.
4. Difference of priority: On the whole human affairs are more important to English people than nature, which is subjugated to human exploitation. Nature is an ornament to decorate man-made objects and not something to be respected in her own right.

These differences tend to make the translation of Japanese haiku into English unsatisfactory, inaccurate and even irrelevant.



5-7-5 Syllables (teikei)

There is a consensus about the rhythm and form of Japanese haiku. As a representative argument, we look at the summary by Keiko Imaoka.

5-7-5 (onsei=syllables, haku, or a beat=jion haku is a better term than onsei, which means syllable, not applicable to Japanese haku, the smallest indivisible unit of aural sound; monosyllable, dissyllable, trisyllable, polysyllable, syllabicate, syllabify, syllabize, )

Japanese haku (beat) is very articulate, short and distinct like staccatos, e.g. sa-ku-ra.
Haku can be subdivided into phonemes (on-so).

Bo-in=5 vowels, a, i, u, e, o ; there used be 8 vowels until Heian (5 vowels , the same with Spanish, Latin; 3 in Arabic, 11 in French, 9 in Korean)
Shi-in=14 consonnants, very few compared with other languages.

There are very few Japanese work having only one haku (beat), e.g. tsu, su, ta, ki, etc. Two haku (beats) is really the length which is comfortable for the Japanese.

“In spoken Japanese each mora is more or less the same length-the same is hardly tru for English syllables…English also has more prominent accents than Japanese, which really gets in the way sometimes when you try to make the syllables match - simply put, English words are such that you don’t necessarily get rhythmical smoothness just by having five syllables. This makes a 5-7-5 division that makes no provisions for accented and unaccented syllables less natural for the English language.” (Shimpei Yamashita)


(Keiko Imaoka’s summary)



Cutting Words (kireji)

Cutting words are certain particles of old Japanese and it is almost impossible to find the English equivalent for the same effect, except for effective use of such things as colons, semi-colons and caesuras.

kumatagari (enjambment)

lineation

brevity=”Brevity is the soul of wit”
“…The point is not to say as much in the [single poem] as possible, by condensing and compacting, but perhaps to say as little as possible that will sketch the scene! I like to think of haiku as sculpture, where we are trying to chip away the excess material (of experience) to reveal the clear image within. If we leave any of the ‘extra’ stone, the result is less sharp and clear.” (Kim Hodges)

Vagueness of Japanese

old Japanese (still used extensively in haiku)

reversed syntax

other word order

other grammatical constraints (determining the subject, dropped subjects, singular/plural, taigen-dome, tohchi-ho, etc.)

rhyme=rhyming is not the main feature of haiku. It is partly because of phonetic properties of Japanese. Also, rhyming in haiku makes it artificial and affected, the characteristics contrary to the spirit of haiku.

Images=haiku relies heavily on pictorial images. However, Japanese images are different from those of English.

Refrain=


Part Two: Invisible, or Non-formal Constraints

This part is more difficult to evaluate not least because it tries to deal with the “invisible” characteristics of Japanese haiku.

hai’i (haiku spirit, or haiku feeling)=Arguably the most important element in haiku, without which a haiku poem would be dry and soul-less. Originally, “hai” was derived from a Chinese word, haikai, meaning “comic”, to distinguish a new form of poetry from the classical and elegant poems, called waka. It was then taken up by Basho who elevated the meaning to a more refined value, which was anti-traditional (freedom of rendering, search for new subjects, language and perceptions including a sense of humour)

haigon (words having haiku feeling)=words traditionally used for haiku in Japan are different from traditional poetry and assume characteristics peculiar to haiku. Haigon reflect the distinct way in which the haiku poet observes the world: an outlook with a slight twist, sense of humour, direct and concrete)

yojo (lingering echo of feeling, “aftertaste”)=the ringing sound after the bell is tolled is often compared to the lingering echo after reading a haiku. A good haiku often has this yojo and like a good aftertaste of fine wines give the prolonged pleasure to the reader.
fuga no makoto (poetic truth)=perhaps the most important of all Basho’s teachings. Haiku without fuga no makoto is shallow, bland and artificial, however cleverly it is written.

furyu (special taste of artistic and poetic nature)=another term impossible to translate. It is translated as elegance, taste and refinement. However, there is no accounting for tastes. A person with furyu is a person of a romantic turn of mind, one of refined taste and loves art, literature, particularly poems. He or she is somewhat removed from the mundane affairs and lives a life of leisure, indulging in cultural pursuits and accomplishment.

wabi, sabi, karumi

honkadori (allusion to a classical poems)=a haiku which “borrows” an anecdote from the old times, which have been told in classic poems.
cultural constraints (indigenous, local events, music, art)=especially those events, cultural values which are “unique” to Japan and which, therefore, have no equivalents in other cultures.


human senses (smell, colour, sound, tactile sense etc.)=haiku is a form of poetry which reflects human senses strongly and make a good use of them for effect.

Other characteristics of haiku=


Let us sum up the argument so far.

1 There are greater difficulties in translating Japanese haiku into English, if not impossible.
2 The difficulties are caused partly by visible, or formal constraints but more importantly by invisible, or non-formal constraints.
3 Therefore, if we accept the validity of the exercise, we should also accept the limitations of such efforts. Some translations are better than others depending on the subject matter, words used in the original, quite apart from the ability of the translator.
4 Having said that, there is a scope that excellent translations of Japanese haiku into English can sometimes be achieved. In some instances, the translations can arguably be better than the original.
5 There are instances of what may be termed as “creative translation” (or, creation itself), whereby the translator more or less rewrite the original, or create a new poem out of it. Here, perhaps we need to define the word “translation” applied to translation from Japanese haiku into English. Because we should remain within the boundary of translation for any translation to remain as such.

Let us now look at two more haiku closely to put these conclusions to test.

Michi nobe no mukuge wa uma ni kuware keri (Basho)

Donald Keene’s translation
Mallow flower
By the side of the road-
Devoured by my horse. Pp142-143, Nihon Bungaku-shi (Japanese Literature, London, 1953???)

Keene compares this translation by himself with that by Chamberlain of the same haiku; -



and maintains that what makes the Basho’s haiku infinitely distinct is that it was the horse Basho was riding that ate the mallow flower. Basho was riding the horse when suddenly it notice the flower and lowered its head to eat it, a second before which Basho had a vivid view of the beauty of it.

The mallow-flower by the road
Was eaten by a [passing] horse. Basil Chamberlain

…the moral lesson conveyed in those few words was too obvious: - “Had not the mallow pressed forward into public view, the horse would never have devoured it. Learn, then, ambitious man, to be humble and retiring. The vulgar yearning for fame and distinction can lead nowhither but to misery, for it contradicts the essential principle of ethics.” (Chamberlain)



Last but not least, I shall introduce a commendable attempt by an English poetess() at demonstrating the feasibility of translating Japanese haiku into English effectively by creating ten different English versions of a famous haiku by Basho.

The haiku in question is: Shini mo senu tabine no hate yo aki no kure (Kasshi-ginko)


The basic prose translation runs thus:

“At the end of this journey at last,
I haven’t met my death, as I feared at the beginning;
At the end of autumn.”

[1] Her first rendering attempted to call up memories of great works in the English literature canon.

“A weary way; now, at last, the end:
In the beginning, fear of death, that passed away.
Autumn is ending too.”

The English reader should recall Grey’s “Elegy” -
“The ploughman homeward plods his weary way”,
also the first words of the Gospel of St. John,
“In the beginning was the word.”
And an Anglo-Saxon lament with the refrain,
“That passed away, so will this.”

Here she seems to be attempting to make an exotic poem acceptable as English poetry by evoking accepted masterworks.

[2] The second version uses simple rhythm and rhyme to mark the haiku firmly as “poetry” in a form accepted by all English people, - the four line rhymed verse found in nursery rhymes and hymns.

“This is journey’s end at last;
I set out fearing Death; he passed
Me by and all my wandering’s done.
And autumn’s come and gone.”

This version personifies Death, using a familiar folk-lore representation of Death as a solitary traveller met on a lonely road.

She may have tried out the easiest English verse form. Overall, this version is too wordy.

[3] The third attempt uses the same easily acceptable form and emphasises Basho’s hint of self-mockery.

“The end of this long road; the journey’s made
At last. Starting, I was afraid
I might meet Death. My foolish fear!
Wandering and autumn’s days end safely here.”

[4] Her fourth try is more concise and ambiguous. Does the end of autumn bring cosy security or expectation of winter and old age?

“The end at last. This weary journey done,
I set out fearing Death; he passed me by;
The end of autumn’s come.”

In this version, she has abandoned rhyme and maybe for that reason it turned out to be too much like ordinary speech.

[5] Version five is again a three line verse, but contains a rhyme and is more cheerful in outlook, even mildly triumphant.

“This is journey’s end at last;
I set out fearing Death, he missed my trail;
Journey and autumn’s end are safely past.”

[6] The sixth variation is the one she herself preferred. It expressed the mood of calm acceptance which I perceive in the poem. It also uses assonance rather than true rhyme.

“This journey’s over; all the wandering done;
Starting, I feared to meet my death but now,
Only autumn’s gone.”

[7] Version seven, very similar, contains a true rhyme (last - past) in place of the “eye rhyme” done - gone. She feels on reading 6 and 7 aloud that 6 sounds more “musical” and softer.

“This is the journey’s end at last.
The death I feared at starting never came,
And not my life, but only autumn’s past.”

[8] The eighth variant follows the rules for Anglo-Saxon poetry in alliteration and rhythm. Thus an English reader perceives the verse as a clever exercise in archaic style which arouses interest.

“The trail travelled truly; goal reach at long last;
Death-dread at road’s head needlessly heeded.
Autumn fast fading.”

She uses words derived from Anglo-Saxon, which gives a strength and vigour to the lines. She thinks that alliteration is still an effective device when writing poetry in English.

[9] In the ninth version she tries, as many translators of haiku do, to copy the Japanese form of seventeen syllables. She feels that English words contain too many syllables to allow nuances of meaning to be expressed in seventeen English syllables.

“End of this long trail
Begun in fear of death.
Alive. Autumn ends.”

[10] The last try offers an example of a pun, using the word “remains” in two senses in an attempt to reproduce the device of the “hinge word” which is used in so many haiku.

“My journey is completed, finally.
Death I feared at starting; life remains
And the remains of Autumn.”