Visiting Shiki’s House

Visiting Shiki’s House

by Susumu Takiguchi



Uguisu-dani is a small station on the Yamanote Railway Line, five stops and due north from Tokyo Station. On the map, it looks drowned by the hurly-burly of the Ueno sprawl, which is the centre of that part of the gigantic metropolis. Tokyo is on flat land. There are, however, hillocks and hammocks here and there of which Ueno is one.

suzume yori uguisu ooki Negishi kana (Shiki, 1893, Meiji 26)

more bush warblers
than sparrows are here –
Ah, Negishi! (version by ST)

When Shiki came to live around here on 1 February 1894 (Meiji 27), it was referred to as Ueno-no-Mori (Ueno Woods) and Uguisu-dani, which means the dale of bush warblers, was still relatively a quiet part of the rapidly expanding capital. In addition to the warblers, the area was famous for its plum blossom and black bamboo. What an apt name for a place where the poet was to live his last eight and a half years! His house was situated in the district called Negishi, which according to a local elder was so named by the combination of “ne” (at the foot of Ueno Woods ) and “gishi” (shore, the sea used to come as far as here). It was also a district where literary figures and artists used to live, famous Sakai Hoitsu being a renowned resident.

Fushi nagara amado akesase asahi teru Ueno no mori no hare wo yorokobu (Shiki, tanka)

lying in my sickbed
I had the rain shutters opened,
the morning sun pouring over
the Ueno Woods, and I rejoice
at the fine day (version by ST)

No. 82 Kami-Negishi was the address of the Shiki-an (Shiki Hut), which housed the bed-ridden genius, his mother and sister and was frequented by his friends and followers. He had lived for two years in No. 89 of the same Kami-Negishi. Having been a “semi-detached” house of lower-grade samurai of the Maeda Han (clan), his new house was a relatively big one by the standards of the time. The size of the whole place was 55 tsubo (1 tsubo=6 “shaku” square) of which more than half was garden (according to Hekigodo, the house measured 24 tsubo). Shiki paid a rent of 6 yen and 50 sen per month. According to his “Gyoga Manroku” (Stray Notes While Lying On My Back), the entry on 30 September 1901 (Meiji 34) says that his income was 50 yen (40 yen from the Nihon Newspaper Company and 10 yen from Hototogisu) per month. It also records the breakdown of September’s household expenses including the rent, which amounted to 32 yen 72 sen, resulting in 17 yen 28 sen in the black (saving). To see roughly how much one yen was worth, the expenses include one month’s milk costing just over 1 yen 48 sen, grocery 3 yen 73 sen and a bit, charcoal 1 yen 11 sen, soy sauce, miso paste and vinegar 1 yen 52 sen, and interestingly fish 6 yen 15 sen (of which bought sashimi was 15 to 29 sen per plate).

kogarashi ya toro ni imo wo yaku ya-han (Shiki, 1900, Meiji 33)

withering winter wind!
On the oil stove, I roast
a sweet potato at midnight (version by ST)

One rainy autumn day in 2001, I got off the Yamate Line and stood still for a while on the platform of Uguisu-dani, trying to imagine what it must have been like for visitors of Shiki-an to walk the last few hundred yards from here to get to it. I was quietly excited. Shiki-an is normally closed to the general public, except for its garden. However, being the year of one hundredth anniversary of his death (according to the Japanese reckoning) it was open to the public as part of its celebrations. Also, the restoration work on the house and garden was completed in February this year. Five minutes later, I found myself standing in front of the gate which led to what to me had become the final destination of my pilgrimage.

Shiki-an ni tsukeba furi-somu shigure kana (Susumu Takiguchi, hereinafter ST)

just as I arrived
at Shiki-an, autumn rain
started to fall, ah!

Inside, I could not quite believe that I was actually in the 8-jo drawing room, looking over at the 6-jo room in which Shiki died. The original house that Shiki lived in suffered two disasters, first it was partially though not seriously destroyed by the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 and then was burnt down by the American air raid at dawn of 14 April 1945. The present house was rebuilt five years later, mainly through the effort of Shiki’s friend Samukawa Sokotsu (1875-1954). Even so, the house did have the atmosphere and even the smell of the old house, which to me is very familiar from my own experience of living in my grandparents’ house which was similarly built. I restrained my strong urge to want to look at everything quickly, as I knew that such a rush would spoil the purpose of my visit – to pay tribute to Shiki. To that end, I deliberately started to look at what seemed unimportant.

nure-en ni uchi-sute-rareshi hechima kana (ST)

on the wet veranda
I see a few snake gourds
abandoned


My guide was not a person but a plan of the house which Kawahigashi Hekigodo, a principal follower of Shiki, drew and also the memory in my head of Shiki’s life about which I had read over many years. Hekigodo’s plan shows the snake gourd pergola, the very first thing I had wanted to see. And there it was, just outside of Shiki’s room facing south, I saw a pergola and about a dozen snake gourds of various colours dangling, with unmistakable yellow flowers displaying themselves here and there. The three death poems by Shiki, all about snake gourds, were etched in my memory. Shiki loved different flowers and plants but from where he must have been lying, I guessed, all he could see were these snake gourds and flowers.

hechima suku hito netari-keru tatami kana (ST)

the man used to lie here,
who loved snake gourds –
now only tatami mats

Shiki-an, where the house master was bed-ridden for seven of his last eight and a half years, was cold during winter. There were only primitive “hibachi” (braziers) for the family to get warm. Whenever Shiki wanted to see the garden, the shoji sliding doors had to be opened, letting in cold air. Followers of Shiki, who were constantly visiting Shiki-an, got very worried about this situation. One of them, Takahama Kyoshi, finally suggested that they should have the shoji doors glazed for their master. In early December of 1999 Shiki was presented with glazed shoji, which became his version of French windows. First and foremost, the glass shoji let in the winter sun, bringing in its warmth and light. From Shiki’s point of view, he could now see the garden without opening shoji.

garasu-goshi ni fuyu no hi ataru byo-ma kana (Shiki, 1999, Meiji 32)

through the glass
winter sun streams into
this sick-room! (version by ST)

Shiki was overjoyed. He could now see his withered garden, the bird cage, pine trees, birds, clothes-rod and the hill of Ueno beyond, without moving an inch. He could also sun-bathe now, even in winter. His remarks of joy are recorded in various documents: “… I am in fabulous mood as I myself clean the glass…” (his letter to Kyoshi dated 11 December 1999) ; “… I became quite cheerful so much so that I sat upright and saw things [through the glass shoji]. While I did so I forgot I was ill…” (Shin-nen Zakki) In addition to the glazed shoji, the Hototogisu magazine paid to buy an oil stove for Shiki and Ito Sachio helped to install a coal stove with a chimney attached.

sanjaku no niwa ni ueno no ochiba kana (Shiki)

In three feet of garden,
The falling leaves
Of ueno. (tr. R. H. Blyth, p. 1089, Haiku, vol. 4)

With silent rain falling, autumn light was soft on the tatami mats of Shiki’s sick-room. I wondered in which way his futon was arranged. The Japanese people never sleep with their head pointing to the north because that is how the dead person is placed (called “kita-makura”, or north pillow). If he slept like that, it would have also meant that his head was in the nearest point to the adjacent four-and-a-half jo small room which belonged to Ritsu, his sister. The Japanese etiquette requires that no one is allowed to walk about anywhere near the sleeping person’s head. I realised that this sleuth work could be a long haul as I was beginning to be obsessive about this probably insignificant detail. So, I went to the “kawaya” (an old-fashioned loo) to spend a penny.

Shiki-an no kawaya ni tachi-te shigure kiku (ST)

standing still
in the Shiki-an pissoir, I hear
the sound of autumn rain

Back to the drawing room, my mind was still on the question of in what direction Shiki was lying. After all, his futon bed was his whole world as he could not leave it on his own. From 1901, Shiki wrote, read, conversed, ate, met visitors, viewed the garden, painted, cried, laughed, writhed in agony, shouted, swore, got medication and treatment, urinated, went to the loo and slept, all within this “byosho rokushaku” (The Six-foot Sickbed). The most obvious way would be for Shiki to sleep with his head nearest to the garden, which was due south. However, in this case he could not have seen the garden without sitting up, or lying on his stomach and raising his head in a recumbent position, which was for him a physical impossibility. So, my conclusion was that he must have been sleeping with his head away from the garden, i.e. to the north and Ritsu’s room. He would not have slept east to west, or west to east because that was the shorter sides of the rectangular room and it would have left no room for Ritsu or Yae, his mother, or anyone else for that matter to walk without striding over him. Imagining myself to be Shiki in bed: -

ashi-oto to akikaze no oto kiku mi kana (ST)

the sound of footsteps
and the sound of autumn wind,
both reach my ears

One of the rare photos of Shiki during his “sick-bed” period (taken on 19 June 1899, Meiji 32) with Shiki sitting on the “rohka” (narrow veranda) of the drawing room shows his “sick-room” on the right hand side. We can just see his “shiki-buton” (mat bed) and a summer “kake-buton” (bedding) on the tatami. There is no “makura” (pillow) where it usually should be, which may indicate that the bit we see is the lower end of his futon, i.e. his head should be on the other end, but this observation is not conclusive. Another photo of him half sitting up in the futon (taken on 5 April 1900, Meiji 33) gives us more clue. If he was in his 6-jo “sick-room”, then he was certainly lying with his head to the north, judging from the position of the four “fusuma” sliding doors and the straw cape and a sedge hat which were hung on the pillow in the middle of the “fusuma”. There is another photo of the “sick-room” itself, which attests my conclusion. When I was satisfied with my speculation about how Shiki was lying in this small room, my imagination started to wander around the now empty room, positioning his writing desk, the square “hibachi” (brazier), sedge hat, flower vase, inkwell and bookcase. (A special exhibition showing these items had been over) As I contemplated, the light seemed to have become a shade darker.

(Note) There is an illustration by Asai Chu for Shiki’s essay entitled “Rampu no Kage” (The Lamp’s Shadow) which appeared in the Hototogisu, vol. 3, issue 4. It depicts nine visitors in the drawing room with Shiki in bed looking at them from his “sick-room” and he is lying with his head to the north.

Shiki-an ya arishi hi omou aki no hi ni (ST)

in the feeble autumn light
I imagine his futon and writing desk –
at Shiki-an

The room in which I was transported to such reverie was the largest in the house and all of Shiki’s visitors were taken there. Visitors – what visitors? It looked as if most of the glittering literary figures in Tokyo at that time frequented there – Meisetsu, Ogai, Soseki, Fusetsu, Chu, Kyoshi, Hekigodo, Sachio, Takashi, Tekkan, Fumoto, Toson, Yaichi, Setsurei, Shihoda, Koroku, Rogetsu, Kakudo, Sokotsu, Izan, Hozuma etc. The list is endlessly long. The main meetings were kukai (for haiku), utakai (for tanka) and yama-kai (for prose-writing) and a number of study meetings of which “rin-ko” (an appointed person did the report which the meeting discussed) on “Man-yo-shu” (The Ten Thousand Leaves anthology) and on Buson was much valued.

byo-sho wo kakomu reisha ya go-roku nin (Shiki, 1900, Meiji 33)

surrounding my sick-bed,
New Year’s Day visitors are sitting –
five or six at a time (version by ST)

On 24 December 1899 (Meiji 32) the Third Buson-Ki Meeting (anniversary of Buson’s death) was held at Shiki-an. There were as many as 45 participants (as compared with 20 in the First Meeting of 1897, Meiji 30, and 22 in the Second Meeting of 1898, Meiji 31) flocking together in this small house from the morning till well after 9 o’clock at night. Shiki had written the famous series of articles Haijin Buson (Haiku Poet Buson) for the Nihon newspaper. The series started in April 1897 (Meiji 30) and was later published as a book in December 1899 (Meiji 32). Also, Shiki was holding study meetings on Buson which he started a year previously. Shiki was heartened that his campaign to endorse Buson was going well. A commemorative photograph was taken with Shiki in the middle of the front row. He was carried by Hekigodo who later recalled how light Shiki was and wrote that it was like “carrying an empty wastepaper basket”. It has become something of customary to provide “furofuki” dish at Buson-ki. This is a popular food in winter of pieces of daikon radish and/or kabu radish, which is boiled and eaten with miso and sesame sauce. It proved to be quite a job to feed 45 people with “furofuki”.

furofuki no hito-kire zuzu ya shi-ju nin (Shiki, 1899, Meiji 32)

furofuki dish --
only one piece each
for forty guests

Thinking about all these things, I did not know how this drawing room, which is small by Western standards, could accommodate so many visitors. Granted the Japanese were much smaller and leaner in those days, I still felt it was like a miracle that this house was the hub of one of the most important literary activities and reform movements in the late Meiji Japan. Tuberculosis, which Shiki was suffering from, was one of the greatest killers and highly infectious. Even so, people were not deterred. Towards the end, Shiki was not always a nice and polite host because of his rapidly deteriorating condition. All the belongings of Shiki have been removed from the house to different museums (quite a few of them were displayed in the Centenary Commemoration Exhibitions at the Shiki Museum in Matsuyama and the Basho Museum in Yamadera) Therefore, the drawing room I was in was empty. So were all other rooms. The total emptiness of Shiki-an had, however, an unexpected effect on me: instead of looking at these exhibits which would give one a flavour of Shiki’s daily life, I could see in the very emptiness all sorts of Shiki’s objects, writings, letters, drawings and diaries and a lot more simply by the power of imagination.

kiku no ka ya ku-shitsu ni Shiki yomigaeru (ST)

chrysanthemum perfume –
Shiki’s daily life revisited,
these empty rooms

From the empty drawing room, I stepped down into the garden. It was far from empty. All sorts of flowers, plants, bushes and trees were vying with each other for space and light. An old photograph of the house indicates that the garden was much more sparse than it is now. I did not have the time or inclination to check which ones were original and which were the ones planted after Shiki’s death. They have all been planted according to the painstaking estimate of how the garden must have been in Shiki’s time by examining his haiku, tanka and all other writings. I thought it was a wonderful tribute to Shiki who loved the garden so much but could not attend to it himself. Among these numerous items, certain plants and flowers were more noticeable: cockscombs, snake gourd flowers, persimmon tree, hagi (bush clover), oshiroibana (marvel of Peru or Mirabilis jalapa), nogiku (wild camomile), peonies, sekichiku (pink) and Shudaido (begonia).

toburai no hana ooku shite Shiki no niwa (ST)

many flowers in bloom
in memorium of Shiki --
his own garden

I looked from the garden at what was Shiki’s “sick-room”. Then, I shivered. I did so partly because the air was getting cold, penetrating all the warm clothing I brought from England, but mainly because I suddenly thought I saw a pathetic prisoner within the six-foot futon bed laid on the small 6-jo tatami room, confined there for the greater part of eight and half years of his taking residence at this magic address. “Byosho Rokushaku” (The Six-foot Sickbed) was serialised from 5 May 1902 (Meiji 35), his last year in this world, and went on appearing until two days before his death, i.e. 17 September, all 127 instalments. It was a six-foot sickbed prison. However, what a prison it was! It was a prison where Shiki gained maximum freedom – freedom of creation, freedom of innovation and freedom to realise himself. What, then, are we doing, being given the maximum physical freedom as well as far greater spiritual and poetic freedom than we deserve, except for the restrictions to freedom which we impose upon ourselves and yet blame others for doing so, by way of creating even a single haiku, or of saying even a single remark, which is worthy of Shiki’s phlegm, cantankerous outbursts or pus? I shivered because of my inadequacies. And I shivered because of human arrogance, ignorance, fanaticism, prejudices, exploitation and aggression, all of which can sadly be seen in the haiku world as well as in more obvious worlds.

aki fukashi Shiki no kuraku ya shimi-tooru (ST)

Shiki’s mourn of pain
and cry of joy, all permeate
deepening autumn

[End]

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]



^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^



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.”