Kokinshu #249

[lnhammer]

A poem from the poetry contest at the house of Prince Koresada.

    As soon as it blows,
the autumn trees and grasses
    instantly wither --
that must be, yes, why they call
this mountain wind "fury"ous.

—23 February 2010, rev. 13 September 2011

Original by Fun'ya no Yasuhide. Previously posted as Hyakunin Isshu #22. On to book 5 and the second half of autumn, leading off with this introduction to the next major theme: changing vegetation. This poem is built on a mostly untranslatable kanji pun: arashi, "tempest," is a noun form of arasu, meaning "lay waste"/"devastate," but is written not with that word's kanji but one that's a compound of mountain+wind. "Furious" is the closest synonym with a destructive root I can think of; that it can be primped up as a pun is just a bonus. I have to admit, however, that getting hung up on the punny content had long prevented me from appreciating that this is otherwise a skillfully constructed poem.


fuku kara ni
aki no kusaki no
shiorureba
mube yamakaze o
arashi to iuramu

---L.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I quite like William Porter's version (http://woodblock.com/poets/frame_index.php?year=5&print=7):

The mountain wind in autumn time
Is well called 'hurricane';
It hurries canes and twigs along,
And whirls them o'er the plain
To scatter them again.

[lnhammer]

It *does* reproduce the (or at least a) pun, but otherwise it has little of the original. And the rhyme's a bit too chime-y.

---L.

[(Anonymous)]

My good fellow, the original so-called "poem" has *no rhyme at all*! I'm sure you'll agree that even a chimey rhyme(y) scheme is an improvement on *that*. As is the business about brush and cane and so on -- I mean, everyone knows that Japanese poetry is just simple imagery connected by puns -- you can't blame a chap for juicing his translation a bit so that it at least meets the minimum requirements for civilized doggerel.

Seriously, Porter's translation technique does leave a lot to be desired if you were hoping to gain some insight into what the original is like, but it's much more palatable when considered as one out-there approach to be enjoyed in moderation among many -- like Bach on the saxophone or whatever. --Matt

[lnhammer]

Silly -- everyone knows Bach is better with a kazoo orchestra than saxophone.

Porter is indeed better than, say, Dickson, Chamberlin, and the other early translators. But nowhere near as good as MacCauley's 1917 edition of the Hyakunin Isshu, which were a true breath of fresh air on the matter.

---L.