Kokinshu #112

[lnhammer]

(Topic unknown.)

    Why should I resent
the scattering flowers?
    Isn't my body
also something that, like them,
decays in this world of ours?

—7 July 2011

(Original author unknown.) "Decays" is interpretive -- literally, the speaker's body is "also something that exists together with (the flowers)," so other verbs are possible. Note that here the ka wa-marked rhetorical question clearly expects a positive answer. I should probably mention, btw, that the phrase I usually translate as "in this world of ours" (yo no naka ni) is literally "in the middle of the world" or more colloquially "within the world." It's often used with a sense of making a universal statement, at least in poetry -- thus my rendering.


chiru hana o
nani ka uramimu
yo (no) naka ni
waga mi mo tomo ni
aramu mono ka wa

---L.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I dunno about "ka wa" expecting a positive answer. How about if those last three lines read "Would my self be around as well in this world as well (as the flowers) (even if they didn't scatter?) (no, it would not)"? (I won't pretend I came up with this interpretation on my own, btw, I found this one quite baffling when I first read it) --Matt

[lnhammer]

I dunno -- that "even if they didn't scatter" seems a rather large lump of hypothetical to scaffold in. On the other hand, the part before it is simpler than my scaffolding, so you may have something of a point.

BTW, would including kanji source text be useful, or is modernized romaji good enough for most purposes?

---L.

[(Anonymous)]

I think with this text if anything romaji is more readable.　Plus, I just checked and for the one poem I can think of where kanji might have been directly useful (#249), the character in question doesn't even appear. (Good luck translating that one, by the way...)

But OTOH my opinion on this topic probably isn't representative of the whole audience. --Matt

[lnhammer]

I've been figuring the majority of people reading this can't read the kanji anyway, but the romaji at least gives them sound-shape -- while those who could read kanji also have the skills to find it if they want it.

As for #249, ha! -- already done. It still boggles me that Teika picked that one ...

---L.

[lnhammer]

Although, rephrasing it as "(Even if they didn't,) would my body also keep existing together with (them) in this world of ours?" makes it look like less of a lump. And does present things in a slightly witty remove that strikes me as courtly. But it's still a pretty big hypothetical.

Hmm.

---L.