lnhammer: the Chinese character for poetry, red on white background (Default)
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    As soon as it blows,
the autumn trees and grasses
    instantly wither --
that must be, yes, why they call
this mountain wind "furious".

—23 February 2010

Original by Fun'ya no Yasuhide, father of Asayasu of #37 and one of the so-called Six Poetic Immortals. The crux of the poem is a mostly untranslatable kanji pun: arashi ("tempest") comes from arasu, meaning to lay waste/devastate (and related to arai, wild), but is written not with that kanji but one that's a compound of mountain+wind. "Furious" was the closest synonym with a destructive root I could think of, and syntactically it's a bit off.

Incidentally, Hokusai's illustration for this is gorgeous -- pity it was never made into a print.


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


---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.

April 2025

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