I only know a tiny corner of the language, but for things like this I <i>really</i> wish they'd cite the original Japanese. Precisely because the haiku is a constrained form, it is also an opportunity for ambiguity, double-meaning, and cases where a word may be translated with the same semantics but different connotations.<p>By comparison, the gold standard for dealing with non-English poetry in English: <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0135" rel="nofollow">https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1...</a><p>You have (1) the original Greek, (2) word-by-word lookup, (3) translation notes, and (4) multiple translations.
Agree 10,000 fold.
English and Japanese are so different and have such different standards of aesthetics and literary form that good translations are like independent creations inspired by the original.
I would like to know that the original form was.
Even a word by word ungrammatical transliteration would be helpful. But not to have the Japanese available means I cannot even look it up...
I am a native Japanese<p>Original Kanji - hiragana works:
おほけなき床の錦や散り紅葉<p>How it sounds:
Oh ke naki
Yukano nishikiya
chiri ko yo
In which case the "crimson carpet" appears to be the loose invention of the translator. The original just says "brocade" or I guess, "quilt", implying some sort of silk bed cover?
Oh ho ke na ki?
As a native Japanese speaker, I'm happy to see our literature introduced to other countries. But I also feel conflicted.<p>The original Japanese of the first poem is:<p>おほけなき床の錦や散り紅葉<p>The translation on the site:<p>> I am not worthy
> of this crimson carpet:
> autumn maple leaves.<p>This contains the translator's interpretation, and the sound and intonation are completely lost. I admire the translator's effort, but I want visitors to understand how much this differs from the original.
This is the general problem with literature and poetry especially. They're not entirely translatable.<p>- Languages are part of culture and they are historically conditioned, making them necessarily bounded and finite [0]. While the essential thing signified may be the same for corresponding words in two languages (<i>snow</i> vs. <i>Schnee</i>), there is variance in semantic emphasis, connotation, and symbolic significance. In other words, the pragmatic aspect of language is highly contextual and conditioned.<p>- Words can be used univocally, equivocally, or analogically, and there isn't necessarily a correspondence between these constellations across any two languages. But so much of wordplay trades on such constellations.<p>- The syntactic and phonetic features peculiar to a language - apart from the what is signified per se - is heavily exploited by poetry.<p>[0] This reminds me of words like the Greek λόγος (<i>logos</i>), which does not find a satisfactory counterpart in any language as far as I can tell. (Approximations are <i>Tao</i>, <i>Ṛta</i>, or <i>Ma'at</i>, for instance.) You see this difficulty in the translation of John 1 where it is usually rendered <i>verbum</i> or <i>word</i>, which has their own perfections, but fail to do justice to the richness of the original meaning of <i>Logos</i> in passages like John 1:1 and 1:3: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. [...] All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made." When you substitute "Word" with "Logos", you can clearly see how much more pregnant that message is, e.g., that, contrary to the pagan mythology of those John was addressing, in the beginning there was <i>order</i>, not <i>chaos</i>; that God is Reason; that everything that exists is caused by God and therefore fundamentally intelligible. (Curiously, the Latin <i>Verbum</i> is better than the Greek at emphasizing the <i>procession</i> of divine Reason as Second Person from the First Person in the Trinity.)
I feel like trying to replicate the meter in English is a silly constraint<p>I would prefer to know how each line would be best interpreted if it weren't a haiku
If you enjoy longer poems, then you might like <i>The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart</i> (1992). <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/162343.The_Rag_and_Bone_Shop_of_the_Heart" rel="nofollow">https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/162343.The_Rag_and_Bone_...</a>
<p><pre><code> Don’t just stand there with your hair turning gray,
soon enough the seas will sink your little island.
So while there is still the illusion of time,
set out for another shore.
No sense packing a bag.
You won’t be able to lift it into your boat.
Give away all your collections.
Take only new seeds and an old stick.
Send out some prayers on the wind before you sail.
Don’t be afraid.
Someone knows you’re coming.
An extra fish has been salted.
</code></pre>
by Mona (Sono) Santacroce (1928–1995)<p>from <i>The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully</i> by Frank Ostaseski
<p><pre><code> Now that my storehouse
has burned down, nothing
conceals the moon.
</code></pre>
This piece instantly reminded me of Ashes and Snow movie, where one of the poems has very similar opening (followed, in my opinion, by even more beautiful piece, which you can easily find if interested):<p><pre><code> Ever since my house burnt down,
I see the moon more clearly
</code></pre>
I wonder whether or not this is just a coincidence.
I was reminded of the writer Pico Iyer's beautiful writing in <i>Aflame: Learning from Silence</i> of exactly this sentiment, after his house burned down [1]<p>`My house burnt down<p>I can now see better<p>The rising moon`<p>[1] <a href="https://www.mariashriversundaypaper.com/pico-iyers-fire-grief-and-life-lessons/" rel="nofollow">https://www.mariashriversundaypaper.com/pico-iyers-fire-grie...</a>
In the topic of death poems, I consider "You Want It Darker" by Leonard Cohen a masterpiece. He was 83 with terminal cancer. Yet, this song captures both his wit & spirit at its height.
The sun sips the sky until it is drowning<p>I am circling my prey<p>If I am strong, the world will finally let us be<p><a href="https://pearlharbor.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/USS-Essex-CV-9-is-hit-by-a-Kamikaze-25-November-1944.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://pearlharbor.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/USS-Essex...</a>
This is surely epitaph equivalent from that part of the world<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epitaph?useskin=vector" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epitaph?useskin=vector</a>
Since time began<p>the dead alone know peace.<p>Life is but melting snow.<p>~~<p>Having a mental illness and being homeless I sit with my life now and let it melt. I know death is coming so I just let it come. I tried to force death to come twice, but I found that suffering is really no different that joy.<p>I live in a van right now so I am upper class homeless but soon I may be totally shelterless. Part of me is looking forward to it. Through the last ten years, moving from riches to rags, all my past attachments, all I can do is laugh at myself. There is such a weird liberation in inescapable suffering and I hope you all get to experience it someday.
Death is apparently snowy
I don't know whether there is a specific japanese cultural explanation, but in general it often was. In winter when it was cold, those who lacked the strength to go on, layed down in the snow to rest forever.
Everything dies in winter. And then is reborn. Everyone who lives in a cold climate knows deep in their bones that cold and winter are death.<p>Though if we're going to get stereotypical about national characteristics (a dangerous game) then what might be more specifically Japanese is the particularly heightened understanding of this cycle. Or at least, its expression in art, when in the west we might flinch away.<p>I'm currently reading <i>Spring Snow</i>, so probably some of Yukio Mishima is drifting into my thoughts here. (Explaining puns ruins them but there it is again: Yuki o. Snow.)
I don't remember who said it, but a statement that has stuck with me is:<p>The moment when the most you <i>can</i> do is less than the <i>least</i> you <i>need</i> to do, you die.
spirits travel to rest in the mountains after death. the mountain is a place between life and death. there is much association between mountains and death. then by extension snow
"A last fart:
are these the leaves
of my dream, vainly falling?<p>In the original, the image of a dream is combined with the cruder image of passing wind.."<p>Is the wind representing the fart here?
"Passing wind" is an English euphemism, the original does not use "kaze" (wind) but goes straight for "he" (fart).<p>The original word order also puts the dream at the start and drops fart right at the end, which I think is funnier than putting it on the first line.
Passing wind is another term (among many others) for farting.
"Death poems<p>are mere delusion—<p>death is death."<p>Hardcore