Friday, 21 October 2011

lnhammer: the Chinese character for poetry, red on white background (Default)
(Topic unknown.)

    After all this time,
cuckoo, do not return home
    to the mountains --
as long as your voice holds out,
sing here, you, in my garden.

—1 October 2011

(Original author unknown.) And the mini-arc ends with backtracking out of the mountains, trying to prevent returning there -- I suspect the reason this isn't in front of #150, as befits the sequence, is that it links rhetorically into #152 so very neatly. An impatient adverb, here rendered colloquially, and two direct commands give this a brusk tone. More literally, it's sing "in/at my house" which, I've come to realize, is understood to mean inside the grounds. Compare to #131 for a bush warbler version.


imasarani
yama e kaeru na
hototogisu
koe no kagiri wa
waga yado ni nake


---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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