Thursday, 11 October 2012

Kokinshu #315

Thursday, 11 October 2012 16:14
lnhammer: the Chinese character for poetry, red on white background (Default)
Written as a winter poem.

    The mountain village
grows ever more desolate
    in the wintertime
-- knowing that people are gone,
that the grasses have withered.

—10 February 2010

Original by Minamoto no Muneyuki. Previously posted as Hyakunin Isshu #28. Zeugmistic pivot-word: karenu means "were far off/separated" when the subject is people (literally, "men's eyes") and "withered" when it's grass. That we all wither like the grass is, of course, the intended overtone.


yamazato wa
fuyu zo sabishisa
masarikeru
hitome mo kusa mo
karenu to omoeba


---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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