Kokinshu #747

[lnhammer]

    Isn't this that moon?
and isn't this spring the spring
    of former days?
No, only myself alone
remaining as I was ...

—17 January 2010

Original by Ariwara no Narihira, writing yet another famous, frequently translated poem, in this case on the anniversary of an affair being broken off by circumstances. Now this one has too much feeling in too few words. The first lines have two different forms of "to be" -- aranu is the negative verb of existence, modern nai ("moon is not"), while naranu is the negative cupola, modern de (wa) nai ("spring is not spring of old"). The moon and spring are examples of a larger group rather than an exhaustive list, a construction I couldn't render with anything resembling what's known as "poetry". Also not easily rendered is the final sentence fragment with a non-terminal verb form. "No" is not stated, but implied by answering the rhetorical questions with a contradiction. Original:


tsuki ya aranu
haru ya mukashi no
haru naranu
waga mi hitotsu wa
moto no mi ni shite

---L.

Comments

[ex_asakiyume313]

Wow! I knew there had been a lot of translations, but wow! That page you link to is impressive.

I love this poem.

[lnhammer]

I was startled too. And startled by how many different, um, ways of understanding it there are.

I like the poem a lot, but I confess I don't think I've captured it very well. I also wonder why Teika didn't chose it for Narihira's Hyakunin Isshu entry -- maybe he agreed with Tsuriyuki's criticisms?

---L.

[ex_asakiyume313]

It was many and many a year ago since I read any commentary on this poem--tell me what Tsuriyuki's criticism was?

It's a strange poem (not your translation, which actually I like as much as many of them) because it reverses expectations. You expect the moon and the season to be the same, timeless, and a person only to change--but he's saying only he's unchanged, and they have. Alas, all the world is inconstant; only I am left with unchanging feeling!!

[lnhammer]

This is one of the poems Tsurayuki quoted in his preface to the Kokinshu, after saying that Narihira "has too much feeling, too few words. His poems are like withered flowers, faded but with a lingering fragrance."

I've read commentary that suggests that the "feeling" refers to Narihira's frequent questions, tentative forms, and incomplete sentences. I don't know the technical issues involved, but I'm a little dubious.

And yes, about Narihira's reversing our expectations. Impressive, in such a small space.

---L.