一期一会
If you want to listen to the rain while reading, here is the video that I’ve linked the last time.
新古今集 64 - Major Archbishop Gyôkei
つくづくと春のながめの寂しきはしのぶに伝ふ軒の玉水
Such a deep sadness
watching alone the never-ending
spring rain - lost in my
melancholic thoughts, as raindrops fall
from the eaves with shinobu grass.
新古今集 147 - Fujiwara no Yoshitsune
吉野山花のふるさと跡絶えてむなしき枝に春風ぞ吹く
The cherry flowers
at my hometown in Yoshino
have disappeared, just like
peoples’ footprints ; but he’s still blowing -
in the naked branches… the spring wind.
新古今集 148 - Minamoto no Tsunenobu
ふるさとの花の盛りは過ぎぬれど面影さらぬ春の空かな
The full bloom’s beauty
of my hometown’s cherry flowers
has passed, but
in the spring sky the afterimages !
they don’t want to disappear.
新古今集 149 - Princess Shokushi
花は散りその色と無く眺むれば空しき空に春雨ぞ降る
The cherry flowers
have scattered, lost their colours -
when in the empty sky
lost in my melancholic thoughts,
I watched the spring rains fall.
新古今集 201 - Fujiwara no Shunzei
むかし思ふ草の庵の夜の雨に涙なそへそ山ほととぎす
Thinking of the past
at my hermitage where the rain
falls on the grass ; please,
don’t make me cry, mountain cuckoo…
Don’t make me add tears to the rain.
- Kumoi Cherry Trees - Hiroshi Yoshida, 1926.
- Rain at Shuzenji - Kawase Hasui, 1933.
Notes
EDIT : I put some additional notes after having read the very helpful comments of dorod, you can read them here and here.
新古今集 64
つくづくと : this adverb can means two things here : 1) continuously, steadily, regularly ; 2) deeply, keenly, heartily. 1 is for the rain, 2 is for the feelings of the poet.
ながめ : the same noun that we read in the poem of Ono no Komachi. It’s a kakekotoba with two meanings : 1) to watch in the distance, to be lost in melancholic thoughts ; 2) long rain.
寂しき < さびしき : rentaikei of the shiku-adjective sabishi : solitary, sad, lifeless. When we look it up in the kobun dictionary, we see that there are 2 possible kanji for it. But the kanji 淋 was used in this way only from the Edo period (江戸時代 [1603 - 1868]). The Shinkokinshû is from the beginning of the 13rd century.
しのぶ : the complete name is shinobugusa, it’s apparently the name of a kind of grass that can be found in dark places (here, in the eaves). The verb shinobu means “to be nostalgic about something, to long for” ; so this grass is called “the grass of longing”. I chose to keep the word shinobu like it is for the translation. The scientific name of the grass is Polypodium lineare.
伝ふ < つたふ : to move from a place to another place.
軒 < のき : eaves.
Difficult translation. I hesitated about the last line because I didn’t want it to look like the grass is falling too with the rain, but I didn’t want too many syllables, it was quite hard but I finally wrote it like that.
新古今集 147
吉野山 : Mount Yoshino. It’s a place that is mentioned quite often in waka. I found this article about it.
花 : just like the poem of Ono no Komachi, we can safely assume that these flowers are cherry blossoms, since the poem is classified in a spring book.
ふるさと < 古里 / 故郷 : it can means the ancient capital, or the ancient hometown or birthplace of someone. I did a little bit of research on the poet but I couldn’t find his birthplace. So I don’t really know if he’s talking about his hometown or just the capital, but I chose to keep the meaning “hometown”.
跡 < あと : a nice kakekotoba : footprints, or the remains of something (here, the flowers).
絶えて < たえて : just like SKKS 139, it’s a kakekotoba with two meanings : 1) the adverb meaning “totally, completely, entirely” or 2) the verb 絶ゆ (to cease, to vanish, to disappear).
むなしき : rentaikei of the shiku-adjective むなし : empty, dead (for the branches of the trees).
ぞ : emphatic particle (just like in modern japanese).
In the translation, I wrote “he” ; I don’t remember if, in english, we say “it” for the wind ?
新古今集 148
盛り < さかり : the prime of something, the youth, the peak of life.
過ぎぬれど : this word, with saranu, are the two trickiest parts of the poem.
- 過ぎ < すぎ : ren’yôkei of the verb sugu which means “to pass, to be past prime”.
- ぬれ : izenkei of the auxiliary verb nu who follows the ren’yôkei and indicates here the completion of the action.
- ど : but.
面影 < おもかげ : image floating in the mind, illusion. When I read the poem and learned the definition of this word, I instantly thought about this visual phenomena when we look at something like a bright light, and then the image stays on the retina for a few seconds. I had this image of whirlwinds of cherry blossoms in the mind of the poet who remembers when these flowers were in full bloom and swirling in the sky. So I chose to translate this by “afterimages”.
さらぬ : mizenkei of saru (去る) which means “to leave” + rentaikei of the negative auxiliary verb zu → [sara + nu].
新古今集 149
散り : ren’yôkei of chiru (to scatter).
その色と無く : that part was very hard to get for me, I understood the general meaning of it but I had a hard time with the grammar. I will just put a citation of the posts of dorod for explanation :
眺むれば → nagamure : izenkei of the verb nagamu (to look into the distance ; to be lost in melancholic thoughts) + conjunctive particle ba (here it means “when”).
空しき < むなしき : same adjective than in the 147th. I find it beautiful that we can write it with the kanji for sora that we find just after in the poem.
春雨 : spring rains ; be careful about the pronunciation : はるさめ.
色 and 花 are engo (縁語) : associated words. I wonder if the poetess here was only talking about the flowers or about her beauty too, just like in the poem of Ono no Komachi ? Perhaps there is again this double meaning. But I think she was probably talking only about the flowers.
The honkadori of this poem is the 45th of Ise Monogatari ; you can find it here.
新古今集 201
This poem is from the Summer book.
むかし < 昔 : time of the past ; long ago.
おもふ < 思ふ : it can have different meanings linked to the general idea of “thought” ; but here, it’s in a nostalgic sense, “to long for”, “to recall with nostalgia”.
庵 < いおり : hermitage.
涙 < なみだ : tears.
なそへそ : the tricky part of the poem. Let’s divide it in two :
な [そへ] そ
I’ve read in the book of Helen McCullough that the na…so is a form that basically express a negative imperative but not in the sense of a brutal order, more like in a sense of “please don’t do this”. Between na and so, the general rule says that there is the ren’yôkei of a verb.
We have here the ren’yôkei of 添ふ (そふ) : to add.
I took some freedom in my translation.
山時鳥 < やまほととぎす : I’ve read in the book of Laurel Rasplica Rodd that we are talking about the Cuculus poliocephalus, the “lesser cuckoo”. She chose to translate it as “nightingale” but I don’t really understand why, I chose to keep “cuckoo”.
雨 : the cuckoo is singing so the poet is probably talking about a specific kind of rain → 五月雨 ( さみだれ or さつきあめ) : a long, heavy, depressing kind of rain.
I’ve read 2 different translations of this poem, one in the book of L. R. Rodd, and one here. They are different because the translation of L. R. Rodd is basically writing that it’s the cuckoo that should not add his tears to the rain. The poet is asking the bird to not add his tears, but it didn’t really make sense to me. I mean, why would the cuckoo be crying ? He doesn’t know anything about the internal state of the poet. Perhaps the bird is lonely and cold, but it’s written nowhere and there is no link, in meaning, with the three firsts lines of the waka. So it seems much more likely that he’s simply singing like usual, and that his voice shakens the heart of the poet who asks the bird to not make him cry, like in the other translation in the website that I linked. I’m still not 100% sure about this, but that’s the meaning I chose to keep.
Interesting thing to know : during summer, the majority of cuckoos leave the forest to go in the cities. In the poem, the cuckoo who stayed is probably alone (and cold). So it makes sense for the bird to feel sad and lonely, but the first lines of the poem are talking about the poet, so I chose to keep the meaning “don’t make me cry”.
I know I have already written it several times but, like always, please correct me if I made any mistakes, all of this is still very hard for me and I’m still in the learning process.