To celebrate the incoming return of spring, I thought I would share some waka along this great article by National Geographic :
For the first poem, here is a cool video of the uguisu (鶯) singing :
古今集 06 - Monk Sosei
春立てば花とや見らむ白雪の懸かれる枝に鶯ぞ鳴く
Springtime is here -
is he seeing flowers instead
of the white snow
clinging to the branches,
the singing bush warbler ?
古今集 28 - Unknown author
百千鳥さへづる春は物ごとに改まれども我ぞ旧り行く
So many birds are
singing in springtime ;
every living thing
growing young again. But me,
I’m only getting older…
古今集 53 - Ariwara no Narihira
世の中に絶えて桜の無かりせば春の心はのどけからまし
In this world of ours
if there were no such things
as cherry flowers,
the human heart, during spring,
would certainly be peaceful.
Notes
古今集 06
I’ve read 2 different translations of this one. The first was writing the poet as the one who took the snow for flowers. It was talking at the first person, and the branches of the trees where just a place where the bird was singing for no particular reason. The second was taking the bird as the one who was confused and I think it’s way more interesting like that and that it even makes more sense when we look at some of the particles used here. The ば is taking the spring as a condition I believe, a cause ; and the ぞ puts emphasis on the bird. There is also the らむ : its function here is, I believe, “speculation about a cause” (I just read it in the book of Haruo Shirane) where the writer is conjecturing about the reason of something, especially here with the interrogative や. So I think the most correct and interesting translation is basically saying : spring is here, so, is the bird seeing flowers instead of snow, and is that the reason why he’s singing ?
古今集 28
さへづる = 囀る // さえずる : to sing, to chirp
ごと : every
あらたまれども < 改まる (to change, to be renewed [I took a little inspiration from Helen McCullough’s translation who used the words “new youth” to create a contrast with the last line]) + ども (but)
旧り行く = ふりゆく : to get old
物 : thing ; but the meaning “living things” is clearly implied here.
古今集 53
絶えて桜の無かりせば : if there were no cherry blossoms ; if cherry flowers were completely non-existent… ; we have the ば of the ば…まし structure that we found in poem 98 at the very beginning of the thread.
のどけから - まし< 長閑けし : calm, peaceful
春の心 : it was confusing when I read that for the first time, but I think the の should not be interpreted as literally “the heart of spring”, but rather “the heart AT spring”, “the heart during spring”.
I literally spent hours translating, understanding these poems while looking at my reference grammar books, and writing this post, I feel like my brain is melting now I am slow, and it’s still very hard, but very satisfying.
The incredible cherry trees will be in full bloom very soon ; their beauty will delight us for a moment, before disappearing. They come into this world and disappear from it so fast, it almost looks like a dream. There are a lot of poems in the Kokinshû and Shinkokinshû about impermanence and the resemblance between reality and ephemeral dreams, I will probably post some waka about this. It’s very linked of course to the buddhist sensibility that we can also find for example in the Hôjôki and Heike monogatari.
Spring Evening at Inokashira Park, Hasui Kawase, 1931.
Notes
あづさゆみ = 梓弓 : this is a makura-kotoba, associated here with 射る (いる) which means “to shoot (an arrow)”.
より : from, since
年月 = としつき : years and months. When I read it I found it strange because the translation of Helen McCullough was only talking about months and days.
I asked Chat-GPT about that. I know, I know, we can’t always trust the AI, but it gave me an interesting answer. These two kanji are basically symbolic, to talk about time in a more general way, beyond the only season of spring. It’s a reference to the general cycle of the four seasons which is repeating every year. And it underlines the feeling that time is passing very quickly, even years.
It sounds coherent to me, it might be obvious when we say it like that but I was quite confused when I read it.
春立ちし : the beginning of spring
ごとく < 如し : like
おもほゆる < 思ほゆ : to think, to ponder something
I took some freedom with this translation. Some people may say it’s too much ; but I didn’t want to cut the poem with the first line, like saying “birchwood bow” and then full stop to the next line. The word “arrow” isn’t explicity written in the original, but it’s obviously implied.
This poem is interesting because it’s really an example of how hard it is to transcribe all the nuances from one language to another.
I actually hesitated with this one ! In the book of Haruo Shirane, 張る is indeed in the list of the associations with 梓弓. I’ve read that はる is a pivot-word, a kakekotoba. I’m not totally sure if はる was in hiragana or with a kanji, in the original text written by the poet. I thought that kakekotoba could be possible only with hiragana ? but now that I think about it, it doesn’t change anything, the play with the homophony is still here.
Your explanation with 弓を張る totally makes sense, but is it possible that 梓弓 is simply associated with both はる AND 射る ?
One of the reasons why I love japanese poetry is the focus on impermanence. The cycle of the seasons is a natural reminder of this : the autumn leaves falling from their branches and carried away by the wind, the snow so delicate and so pure piling up on the world only to melt and to disappear like it has never existed, the whirlwinds of cherry blossoms, and the green strength of summer quickly painted of yellow and orange. For us humans, a birthday, an illness, a death in our close circle or maybe even a simple contemplation of a sunset, a river or a cloud dissipating in the sky can be a brutal reminder that there is not a single eternal being or thing in this universe, not even the universe itself. It can be stressful, but also liberating. There is a deep sadness and beauty in impermanence ; the world in which we live in is always changing, and reality sometimes can seem as ephemeral as dreams.
This confusion between dreams and reality is one of the thematics of the Kokinshû and Shinkokinshû ; the waka talking about that are some of my favorites, and I thought I would share some of them here.
But just before starting, I invite you to listen to this video while you read :
In the modern world, unfortunately, millions of people have to live with promiscuity, ugly architecture, dirtiness, pollution, roads, cars, people who spit on the ground, noises, and all the other annoying things about reality. But virtual worlds offer an escape, like Ghost of Tsushima, one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever played ; the particles system and the fields of flowers are so incredible, it’s really a must-have on PlayStation (I think the PC version will come out soon ?). You can even compose haiku in this game, and in the Iki expansion, Jin actually talks one time about the Kokinshû after he played flute for the deers. How amazing is that ?
新古今集 139 - Fujiwara no Ietaka
桜花夢か現か白雲のたえてつねなき峰の春風
The cherry flowers,
are they real ? or a dream ?
Ephemeral white clouds
disappearing - spring wind in
the summits of the mountains.
新古今集 625 - Monk Saigyô
つの国の浪花の春は夢なれや葦の枯れ葉に風わたる也
This springtime at Naniwa
in the province of Tsu, was it
nothing but a dream ?
The wind is spreading among
the dead leaves of the reeds…
古今集 641 - Unknown author
ほととぎす夢か現か朝露の起きて分かれし暁の声
When we woke up
and had to part each other,
was it a dream ? or
was it real, the cuckoo’s voice
in the dew, before the dawn ?
古今集 942 - Unknown author
世の中は夢か現か現とも夢とも知らずありてなければ
Is this world
an illusion ? or a reality ?
Whether or not it’s
real or a dream I don’t know ;
it exists, and doesn’t exist.
1 : Fuji from Gotenyama at Shinagawa on the Tôkaidô (from the Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji), Katsushika Hokusai, 1830-32.
2 : Cherry Blossoms Party at the Chiyoda Palace, Toyohara Chikanobu, 1894.
Notes
新古今集 139
I’ve read 2 different versions of this poem. One with つねなき (this was the one I read in the book of Laurel Rasplica Rodd) and one with つれなき. If we keep つれなき, this word comes from tsurenashi and I’ve read that it applies to the wind : cold wind. I chose to keep tsunenaki to give the meaning “temporary, ephemeral” to the cherry flowers.
There are 2 kakekotoba :
たえて : it either comes from the adverb 絶えて (totally, completely, entirely) or from the verb 絶ゆ (to cease, to vanish, to die) ;
しら : white / don’t know (with the suffix zu I believe)
Poems of the Shinkokinshû often referenced poems from the Kokinshû, these allusions are called honkadori. Here, there are allusions to the KKS 942 and 601.
新古今集 625
Naniwa is the ancient name for Ôsaka. I’ve seen different kanji combinations to write it.
古今集 641
I chose to write “we” because the poet clearly implies that he/she was with someone, and they had to be separated in the morning.
About the word akatsuki : I’ve read in the classical dictionary of Haruo Shirane that it means “just before the dawn”, but in modern dictionaries, I’ve always seen it referenced as “the dawn”. Perhaps it can still means “before the dawn” in modern language, but if not, it’s interesting to see how the meaning of a word like this can change with time.
古今集 942
I’ve seen the word nakereba in other sentences in the book of Haruo Shirane, like this one : hane nakereba → since they did not have wings […]. I’ve looked up the Reader and essential dictionary and there was this word in one of the grammar sections of Hôjôki. It says that nakereba is the izenkei of the adjective 無し (non-existing, not living) with the conjunctive particle ba. In the Bungo introduction book of Helen McCullough, it was saying that, when ba follows the izenkei, it usually means “because”, “since”.
So in this poem, with arite, I think it basically means : because/since the world exists and doesn’t exist, I don’t know (shirazu) if the world is real or a dream.
And I think the tomo…tomo is basically this grammatical rule.
Like always, please correct me if I made any mistakes.
The waka of this post is one of my favorites, and it really shows why japanese poetry (I would even say just poetry in general) can only be fully appreciated in its original language. It’s a complex one but luckily I found a lot of help in my books and also in this blog post. I also found more information about the poetess in this article : Ono no Komachi and The Standard of Japanese Female Beauty.
There is so much to parse about this poem, I have two sheets of paper full of notes in a big notebook, I analysed every word with the help of course of my books and the article I’ve cited in the beginning.
花 : in the Kokinshû, this poem is placed in the second spring book, so it’s fair to assume that these flowers are actually cherry blossoms. They also symbolize the physical beauty of a woman.
移りにけりな < うつりにけりな ;
うつり : ren’yôkei of utsuru (to fade)
に : ren’yôkei of nu who indicates the completion of the action “to fade”.
けり : shûshikei of the auxiliary verb keri → I’ve read in the book of Helen McCullough that it can be used for expressing a feeling of wonder/surprise when the writer suddenly realises something for the first time.
な : an exclamatory final particle.
When I first translated it, I didn’t write the two firsts words but then I realised that the meaning brought by keri and na was not present, so I chose to write “how sad”.
Because of na and the shûshikei, it shows that the second line should actually be the closing line. The 2 first lines have been inverted with the 3, 4 and 5 : Haruo Shirane explains that this “grammatical inversion” (倒置法) is purely for an artistic reason, to give a “dramatic effect”.
徒らに < いたづらに : ren’yôkei of the nari adjectival verb itazura (“useless, fruitless, empty, in vain”) ; because it is in ren’yôkei form, it can modify a verb (like an adverb), and here is the interesting part : this line can basically be applied to the 2 first lines AND the 4th and 5th.
The choice is left to the translator. Helen McCullough for example chose to link the word with the 2 first lines about the cherry flowers.
In the third line of my translation, I could have written “myself in vain in” for 5 syllables, but I preferred “my body” instead.
わ : personal pronoun (I, me)
The most beautiful, amazing part of this waka resides in the two kakekotoba.
ながめ
眺め : looking at, gazing off in the distance ; to be lost in sad, melancholic thoughts
長雨 / 霖 : long rain
ふる
In his Reader, Haruo Shirane writes that ふる is the rentaikei of the verb 経 (ふ) and that it means “to pass through”. I guess it has the meaning “to pass through a place” ; here, the world, like we would pass through a forest or another physical location ? I looked up the verb (in the same book) and he gives 3 definitions : “to spend time, to pass by a place, to experience”.
In the article that I linked, furu is taken in the sense of “spending time” : the poetess has spent time (in the world).
I’m still not exactly sure about this, but I chose to keep the meaning “passing through the world”.
With that said, here is the incredible part about it. furu is a kakekotoba with a double, even triple meaning :
経る : to pass (through the world)
降る : to fall (for the rain)
旧る : to get old (for the poetess ; I don’t know why Mr. Shirane didn’t talk about this one in his book)
How amazing is that, seriously ? It fits perfectly with the nagame and the withered flowers. Just incredible. Personally I love the kanji 霖 for “long rain” because of the two little trees, when I see this kanji I instantly imagine a forest in my head with the appeasing sound of rain.
However, at the end, the part I don’t understand is the せ. Why the verb su (to do) is in its mizenkei form ? When I see the function of the mizenkei, I don’t understand why it’s conjugated like this. But I still get the meaning, with shi (rentaikei of ki for personal past) and ma (I guess the kanji for it is : 間) : “while I did…”. The final ni is a case particle who indicates the “time of action” I believe.
I also hesitated about closing the poem with “…” or just “.” ; it might sound like a silly detail but I feel like it actually changes the feeling carried by the end and the way we read it in our head
This is an amazing write-up. I finally took the time (like I always mean to!) to look at the original poem and your translation and just sit with it a while. And even try to do some puzzling myself about the Japanese.
I didn’t get very far with the Japanese actually and I was wanting to ask you how you approach this, then I saw more details that you needed 2 pages to sort your thoughts! It’s so neat that you put so much work into that and then the effort to organise your thoughts for this thread. I wouldn’t currently manage to get so much depth out of the poem, so I’m really thankful for all your efforts here! It’s something I’m super interested in, though, so perhaps the solution is to take small steps with each of your posts.
I couldn’t agree with you more, the kakekotoba words make this poem so poignant - and such a challenge for translating. Nice pick for the background atmosphere, too!
Thank you so much I don’t want to take too much credit though, all of this grammatical/vocabulary parsing is possible because of my books and online research, and every time I already saw other translations of the poems so I already know the meaning before formulating my own. These translations are learning exercices for me, I’m still an acorn working to be an oak one day
I feel like I learn better that way instead of studying some random vocabulary lists… This poem for example is already engraved in my memory like a few others that I know by heart (I’ve read somewhere that some persons, poets for example, learned the whole Kokinshû by heart, like Jin’s mother in Ghost of Tsushima. That’s so crazy to me). It’s so fun to learn while diving right away, on my own rythm, in something I love. That’s why I would have probably hated studying japanese in college for example, with the grade pressure, obligation to obey to the teacher’s method, etc. And for something long-long-term like japanese, having short-term rewards is so important. To understand these waka make me so happy, they accompany me in my daily thoughts.
I feel like the brain memorizes much better when a word is in a context and something that you love to read/watch… For example I’m currently reading the amazing Girls’ Last Tour series, and there are words like 起爆装置 (kibakusôchi, detonator) or 爆撃機 (bakugekiki, bomber plane) that would have been much harder to retain if I saw them alone…
What I find helpful is that you put it here from a learning perspective, and breaking it down at that level. Also providing a forum at this level to discuss it, somehow makes it easier to get into.
I’m the same with vocab - if it’s in the context of something interesting then it’s way easier to learn and remember!
I am excited to find this thread. I am a tiny baby beginner at Japanese (wani kani level 3), but I am a poet with an English literature degree, and my goal with Japanese is to read the classic poetry.
I have been studying renku, renga, haiku and haibun, and writing an ongoing poem series that is kind of a mashup of these with haiga, while learning about Japanese poetic form as I go, and that is what got me to jump into learning the language. There are aspects of the language that seem inherently poetic.
I have been planning to get into a study of poems as a main focus of my language study, so I hope to find some discussion here, of course, I am busy getting down the basics.
Hello Moonsister, welcome to WK ! you will find a lot of interesting things here. I’m happy that my thread catched your attention, our motivation is quite similar because classical poetry is also the first reason why I started learning japanese ! I mean, I also love manga, anime and just in general the japanese culture, but I would have been just fine reading the translations in my first language if not for poetry. There is a beauty that just can’t be fully appreciated in translations I’m afraid, like in this poem of Ono no Komachi that I just shared in my last post.
I like the effect of the ellipses at the end, it suggests wandering off again into anxious thoughts (as the body keeps aging, the flowers fade and the rain continues). Not a silly consideration, because you don’t want to over use this in poetry.
I agree that reading a poem in translation, you have to be aware that it’s gone through a significant filtering process, and you don’t know how much of the original poem is present (until you do the kind of study you are doing!). It is nice to have a variety of translations to compare different takes. I love how you added in the “how sad!” It feels very alive.
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.
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.
This is my favourite one, and I really like your translation choices.
I would have thought the wind is normally an “it” in English, but, sometimes a “he”, and I like the personification because it made me pause for thought before the next line and gives it a bit more of that discovery feel on the last line that is so common in Japanese poetry.
That is beautiful
I have no idea what is correct, but your interpretation and translation is very poignant. I like it!
I’m glad you noticed that feeling of discovery in the last line because when I first tried to translate it, I basically wrote : peoples’ footprints ; but the spring wind / is still blowing. And then when I read it again I was feeling like something is missing, so I chose to put it at the end.
Now that I read it again, I feel like the " ! " is maybe too much… I don’t know, I struggle sometimes with the choice of punctuation, like in the poem that you quoted. And the 2 last lines went through several attempts :
Don’t add your tears to the rain !
you, (little) montain cuckoo…
Don’t cry ! Don’t add your tears (Do not)
to the rain, montain cuckoo…
Don’t cry ! Don’t add your tears to
the rain, you, montain cuckoo…
Please don’t cry ! Don’t add your tears
to the rain, montain cuckoo…
But finally I prefer way more the option “don’t make me cry” instead of the poet asking the bird to not cry.
It sounds like leaving time in between translating and editing or reworking stuff is a really useful part of your process. I can imagine it sharpens your senses and really helps you notice these kinds of effects (like the strength or absence). It’s amazing how much that improved it from what you quoted above!
You know I have that, too, with punctuation. When I write emails, I even leave 10 minutes before sending sometimes if it’s a sensitive one because I always find I go back and take out all the exclamation marks. I wonder if there is some kind of effect where when you’re so wrapped up in details, it is needed for intensity. But when we step back and then return to a piece of writing, it has enough bite / surprise that we weren’t aware of and the !!! is unnecessasry. I agree, in this one you are discussing, it’s better without the exclamation marks. (And as already said, I like the opposite perspective, too). Maybe it’s more a reflection of me and which being I’m identifying wiht more…
Same for me Written communication really has its own codes, that’s why in texting for example we tend to not put a " . " at the end because it gives a “hard”, “serious” feeling, like the person is maybe upset or something… personally I almost never do it, except when there is another sentence after, and then I conclude with a smiley or just no punctuation mark at all. We can’t use the tone of our voice, our facial expression, our body language to express ourselves in writing, to lower the “sharpness” of a sentence for example. I almost always re-read texts, mails and even internet posts like this one to make sure I didn’t express the wrong “tone”.
I just edited it after posting my reply, I also prefer without it. It was bothering me a little since I woke up this morning.
That’s a lot of poem in one place! You’ve given some nice explanations of some of the vocab/grammar, so I’ll just add some complementary stuff I found while looking these up.
A lot of the translations into contemporary Japanese replace this with ぼんやりと, giving a sense of being lost in thought while staring at the rain. Of course as you mentioned it also hints at the ceaselessness of the rain.
Unfortunately, this kanji was only used in this way starting in the 江戸 period, so it wouldn’t have been used in the original poem. Furthermore, although I’ve seen it used for this poem once online, most websites use the kanji 寂 instead. Apparently, there is a difference in nuance here. 淋 is used when there is a psychological loneliness, so for phrases like 淋しい人間, while 寂 is used for physical or natural scenes. In this case, although there is a lonely atmosphere, it seems the 寂しき is describing ながめ, so it would probably fall under the natural scene category. All this being said, I like 淋 as a kanji too (I just try not to think about the disease that utilizes it ).
This definition is a bit abstract, but the image I got in my head while reading was that the raindrops from the eaves ran along the leaves of the shinobu and then fell down. Shinobu is a type of fern, so the raindrop following the natural downward curve of the leaves is a pretty strong impression.
Most of the interpretations I saw rewrote this as 旧都, or ancient capital like you said. Although even looking at a 古文 dictionary, both definitions are listed so it may be up to interpretation.
I understand your explanation of the 絶えて being a kakekotoba, but it does feel a bit strange to call 跡 a kakekotoba here when the word 跡絶ゆ existed and meant 訪れる人がなくなる. I’m assuming that the etymology was indeed footprints disappearing, but does that mean that whenever you use this word, you are using a kakekotoba?
It’s very hard to encompass the meaning of kanji like this in English translations. Especially with shorter poems, it feels regrettable to not be able to subtly express things in the way kanji can.
Yeah this seems like a very difficult phrase to pick apart. The その here actually has the meaning of どの and と is more like ということも, so a more understandable phrase is どの色ということもなく.
Hermitage is definitely a word that’s hard for me to imagine in real life. But I think searching 草庵 gives you the right idea, and it’s basically just a thatched hut. The background here is that the poet used to live in the city, but quit as a government official to become a monk due to his illness two years before the writing of the poem. The contrast of the lively city with his current ascetic lifestyle intensifies the feeling of loneliness.
For some reason, some translators just can’t get birds and flowers right sometimes
This is definitely a cuckoo, but the important context is that during the summer most cuckoos leave the forest for the city, so the song of the remaining cuckoo must be lonely indeed. Fun fact: ホトトギス has the most kanji variations of any bird in Japanese. The one I saw the most for this poem was 郭公, which I like particularly because the other reading of it (かっこう) sounds like the sound of the bird.
Given that the cuckoo is singing, it can be implied that this isn’t just any rain, but 五月雨, which is particularly lengthy and can be quite depressing.
I feel like this meaning is already being carried by the double-meaning of nagame ? But it’s still useful to know.
That’s really interesting. I actually hesitated a little before the choice of kanji because I’ve seen the one you mention in the kobun dictionary, but I didn’t know that 淋 was only beginning to be used with that meaning at the Edo period. But for the meaning, even though sabishiki technically applies to the rain, I thought that it was also indicative of the poet’s feelings. But anyways it’s still the kanji 寂.
I just looked it up on Jisho and indeed it’s not a pleasant association
In the book of L. R. Rodd, she explains that 跡 also means the remains of the cherry flowers. The footprints have disappeared (so it’s implied that the place is lonely) and the remains of cherry blossoms have disappeared too.
I’m not totally sure I understand, could you please explain again what that means and how you would translate it ? The only use that I know for どの is “which” ; then ということ is for nominalization I believe, then the も is “too” ? but I don’t see how all these parts come together to means the general idea of “the color has became nothing”.
I just looked up 郭公 and it looks like it’s a different kind of cuckoo ? The Cuculus canorus, while in the poem, I’ve read in the book of L. R. Rodd that it’s the Cuculus poliocephalus.
Very interesting, so now the meaning “don’t add your tears to the rain little cuckoo” actually makes sense. I hesitated between these two interpretations because before reading your post, it didn’t make sense to me for the poet to ask the bird to not cry. I was wondering if there is a way, grammatically, to be sure of which one of the two meanings is right ? Is it the poet saying “don’t make me cry” or “don’t cry, you, montain cuckoo” ? Because grammatically, for me the right meaning is “don’t add your tears cuckoo”, but in the meaning I thought that was so strange (before reading your post). Perhaps the two meanings are possible ?
I looked up 眺む in a 古文 dictionary and got 「ぼんやりと見やる。（ぼんやりと）物思いに沈む」, so it seems you’re correct here. In that case though, it could be that the modern translation just excluded つくづくと because the meaning was already included in 眺む haha
This is a meaning I did not find in the dictionary. Does that mean in this specific poem or maybe poetry in general?
Grammar is not really my strong suit, but I’ll give it a try. I think it just means 色がない but with more emphasis. As you said, ということ can be nominalization, but in this case it sounds like it just emphasizes 色. For example if I wanted to say “That person doesn’t have a clue about ethics,” I could write その人は倫理ということを知らない. Without ということ, it would just be “That person doesn’t know ethics.” In a similar vein, the も just gives a sort of flavor of “even,” so maybe putting it all together (rather wordily), it becomes “There wasn’t even a single color to be seen.” I’m sure there’s plenty of ways to write that more concisely, but I’m even worse at poetry in English
Thanks for pointing this out! I only knew 郭公 as the little ol cuckoo, but it turns out there’s another bird associated with it. Looking into this further, I came across the following entry:
So basically the Heian period Japanese used that kanji for the cuckoo, and then later it was used as an ateji for the カッコウ科 birds. Given that the cuckoo has the esteemed position of having at least 17 different ways to express its name in kanji, I guess it’s only natural it would have to share some with other birds later on!
It seems like most attribute the tears to the poet, and he’s pleading with the cuckoo to not make him add his tears to the rain. Grammatically I imagine it’s ambiguous, as the poem follows the tradition of plopping a noun at the end and leaving it there for 詠嘆. But if we were to look for clues, I’d say that since the beginning starts with 「昔思ふ」, the following would still be in relation to him. In my opinion, it’s too sudden a shift to be reminiscing on one’s glory days while staying in a shabby hut in the rain and then switch focus to the bird. The bird is just another part of the scenery that adds to his sorrow.
I am slow, and it’s still very hard, but very satisfying.
I don’t want to take too much credit though, all of this grammatical/vocabulary parsing is possible because of my books and online research, and every time I already saw other translations of the poems so I already know the meaning before formulating my own. These translations are learning exercices for me, I’m still an acorn working to be an oak one day 
