Hyakunin Isshu #35

[lnhammer]

    What goes on inside
human hearts cannot be known,
    but in my home town
the plum blossoms still give off
the same perfume as of old.

—7 November 2009

Original by Ki no Tsurayuki, who has just "flower" but in his headnote when he included it in the Kokinshu (as I:42), it says he recited it with a spray of plum blossoms, so plum in translation it is. For an alternate opening I have "I cannot tell | what is inside people's hearts," which may be closer to the original but sounds less graceful to my ear. Modernized original:


Hito wa isa
kokoro mo shirazu
furusato wa
hana zo mukashi no
ka ni nioi keru

Comments

[asakiyume]

I love that poem; I love Ki no Tsurayuki generally. The Japanese is simple but beautiful.

[lnhammer]

I'm starting to really dig Tsurayuki. Possibly more than Ōtomo no Yakamochi, though not yet as much as Hitomaro.

And the simple and beautiful is why I translated it -- or rather, why I'm able to even try. :-)

---L.

[lnhammer]

So far the best translation I've found is Stephen Carter's:

About the people
living on this old place
I cannot be sure--
but the plum blossoms at least
have the scent of long ago.

I won't say it's miles better than mine, but it's at least a couple ri.

---L.