Kokinshu #42

[lnhammer]

When he arrived, after long absence, at the house of the person with whom he habitually lodged when he made pilgrimages to Hatsuse, the person sent out word that "this inn" was always open to him. [Tsurayuki] then broke off a flower of the plum that stood there and recited this.

    What goes on inside
human hearts cannot be known,
    but in my home town
the plum blossoms still give off
the same perfume as of old.

—7 November 2009

Original by Ki no Tsurayuki. I've posted this poem before as Hyakunin Isshu #35. Hatsuse near Nara was the home of Hase temple. The original is just "blossom," but given headnote, plum in translation it is. As an aside, many translations fail to bring out the sarcasm of Tsurayuki's host.


hito wa isa
kokoro mo shirazu
furusato wa
hana zo mukashi no
ka ni nioikeru

---L.

Comments

[mme_hardy]

I thought of you last night. I was reading the last chapter of Ivan Morris's The Nobility of Failure: Tragic Heroes in the History of Japan. The last chapter is kamikaze pilots, v. depressing.

It turns out that the specially designed airplanes (before they started using normal planes) were called &Omac;ka, cherry blossom, and there are surviving haiku.

If only we might fall
Like cherry blossoms in the Spring --
so pure and radiant!

And the death haiku of Vice Admiral Ugaki, who was in charge of the whole thing:

Refreshed and clear, the moon now shines
After the fearful storm.

[lnhammer]

I've met the Ôka* planes, but not the haiku for them. Must track this byway down. And possibly the Morris book.

Have you met Memories of Silk and Straw: A Self-Portrait of Small-Town Japan by Junichi Saga? The WWII sections were especially fascinating.


* Formerly written 櫻花, modern 桜花, read as sakurabana in poems for nationalistic purposes.

---L.