Monday, 22 March 2010

lnhammer: the Chinese character for poetry, red on white background (Default)
    I don't think there is
anyone so moved they must
    call me "pitiful" --
it surely must be pointless
for me to continue on.

— 10-18 March 2010

Original by Fujiwara no Koretada (or Koremasa), grandson of Tadahira (#26) and father of Yoshitaka (#50), being rather a drip about the end of an affair. Or maybe the phrase I'm looking for is "wangsting". Frankly, I can't seem to make this into anything resembling a good poem. Also, I'm at a loss to explain what, grammatically, is going on with ni in line 4 (direction of becoming or adverbial marker?); commentaries explain that itazura ni naru ("become useless"?) was a poetic cliche for "to die of disappointed love," which only partially helps.


aware to mo
iu beki hito wa
omooede
mi no itazura ni
narinu beki kana


---L.

About

Warning: contents contain line-breaks.

As language practice, I like to translate poetry. My current project is Chinese, with practice focused on Tang Dynasty poetry. Previously this was classical Japanese, most recently working through the Kokinshu anthology (archived here). Suggestions, corrections, and questions always welcome.

There's also original pomes in the journal archives.

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