Post by Please Delete on Mar 22, 2010 22:11:01 GMT -5
I came up with the following this morning, and thought I would try to express it in Japanese. I'd appreciate any bungo-related thoughts (note: The Japanese and English do not exactly match up because I was trying to get the meter to work out).
As my garment's sleeves
Become drenched with the dew
'Neath the morning moon,
A salty tear escapes the eye
Into salty ocean waves.
Koromode ha
Tsuyu ni nure tsutsu
Ariake ni
Nami ni fureru ha
Namida nari keri
衣手は
露にぬれつつ
有明に
波にふれるは
なみだなりけり
Fujiwara Shosho
藤原勝盛
First:
衣手は
露にぬれつつ
As I understand it, this is a fairly common phrase. It ends in the continuing "tsutsu", which is equivalent (for this purpose) of "-teite", meaning the sleeves have been wet and continue to be wet.
This is usually an allusion to the leave-taking of two lovers, early in the morning, since the man would need to be away before the family awoke, if propriety is to be observed--see the numerous leave-takings in the romantic works of the Heian period, such as Genji Monogatari. I've reinforced it here with the final line in this verse:
有明に
Ari ake (literally "the light that exists") is a poetic indication of the moon shining early in the morning in the pre-dawn hours.
The last two lines are about leaving, though perhaps only tangentially.
波にふれぬは
なみだなりけり
Literally: As for the the (thing which) fell into the waves, it was a tear.
I'm not sure if "furenu" is appropriate here. "Furu" means "to fall" as in rain or snow falling down. As I understand it, "nu" indicates past tense or completion of an intransitive verb, so in this case it would be the thing which fell into the wave(s).
I've juxtaposed "nami" and "nami" on purpose; I know that the Japanese did play with the sound of the poem as much as the meaning (滝の音はたえて久しくなりぬれど。。。), so I feel on fairly good ground here, as long as I haven't inadvertently twisted the meaning. In the English, I tried to capture this feeling with the repetition of "salty" (which does not appear in the Japanese but would be implied by both waves and tears).
This was written as I was waiting to get on a plane, so the imagery was meant to also invoke the ocean voyages that would have taken a courtier away from friends, family, and loved ones.
I know I've probably spoiled it all with the exposition, but I'm curious if anyone can comment, as occasionally we need to look at construction beyond just the base meaning, if we want to rise above the level of simple doggerel and capture the aesthetic our forebears were aspiring to.
-Ii
PS: Oh, and I used an art name (the Ii claimed descent from the Fujiwara uji, and "Shosho" is just the sinified pronunciation of "Katsumori") for purposes of scholarly pretension, only.
As my garment's sleeves
Become drenched with the dew
'Neath the morning moon,
A salty tear escapes the eye
Into salty ocean waves.
Koromode ha
Tsuyu ni nure tsutsu
Ariake ni
Nami ni fureru ha
Namida nari keri
衣手は
露にぬれつつ
有明に
波にふれるは
なみだなりけり
Fujiwara Shosho
藤原勝盛
First:
衣手は
露にぬれつつ
As I understand it, this is a fairly common phrase. It ends in the continuing "tsutsu", which is equivalent (for this purpose) of "-teite", meaning the sleeves have been wet and continue to be wet.
This is usually an allusion to the leave-taking of two lovers, early in the morning, since the man would need to be away before the family awoke, if propriety is to be observed--see the numerous leave-takings in the romantic works of the Heian period, such as Genji Monogatari. I've reinforced it here with the final line in this verse:
有明に
Ari ake (literally "the light that exists") is a poetic indication of the moon shining early in the morning in the pre-dawn hours.
The last two lines are about leaving, though perhaps only tangentially.
波にふれぬは
なみだなりけり
Literally: As for the the (thing which) fell into the waves, it was a tear.
I'm not sure if "furenu" is appropriate here. "Furu" means "to fall" as in rain or snow falling down. As I understand it, "nu" indicates past tense or completion of an intransitive verb, so in this case it would be the thing which fell into the wave(s).
I've juxtaposed "nami" and "nami" on purpose; I know that the Japanese did play with the sound of the poem as much as the meaning (滝の音はたえて久しくなりぬれど。。。), so I feel on fairly good ground here, as long as I haven't inadvertently twisted the meaning. In the English, I tried to capture this feeling with the repetition of "salty" (which does not appear in the Japanese but would be implied by both waves and tears).
This was written as I was waiting to get on a plane, so the imagery was meant to also invoke the ocean voyages that would have taken a courtier away from friends, family, and loved ones.
I know I've probably spoiled it all with the exposition, but I'm curious if anyone can comment, as occasionally we need to look at construction beyond just the base meaning, if we want to rise above the level of simple doggerel and capture the aesthetic our forebears were aspiring to.
-Ii
PS: Oh, and I used an art name (the Ii claimed descent from the Fujiwara uji, and "Shosho" is just the sinified pronunciation of "Katsumori") for purposes of scholarly pretension, only.
