会者定離
Winter has finally passed, along with the snow. It seems to me that autumn was just yesterday, and yet, we are already at the doorstep of spring… the colorful leaves blown away by the wind that I had just seen a few months ago look today like a dream, just like the snowfall that I was only able to contemplate for a few hours this year. And it will be the same, very soon, for the cherry flowers.
The sakura that will be blooming this year will certainly have the same color and perfume than the ones of the past, but we, on the other hand, are always changing. Ki no Tomonori was already melancholic about this in one of his poems, more than a thousand years ago. We are not, indeed, cyclic beings like these cherry trees ; we change in a linear way, towards a single unique point from which there is no return : death. Our youth and beauty are very fleeting, just like in this waka of Ono no Komachi ; maybe I’ve been reading too much Japanese poetry but now, when I think about the beauty of the human body, so fragile, I just can’t dissociate it from the sakura…
Even if these trees have a new bloom every year, renewing themselves like the Ship of Theseus, each petal of course is unique ; and the brevity of their existence echoes our own mortality.
These ethereal blossoms have been so much talked about, painted and celebrated that they actually became a cliché, one of those things that even someone who knows little about Japanese culture would mention if being asked to make a list of ideas about Japan, along with sushi, Pokemon, manga and samurai. This popularity is of course not unfounded ; these flowers are just way too amazing, beautiful, and powerful (and fragile) to ignore. They bloom only for a short time in an incredible display before throwing themselves in the arms of death, at the apogee of their beauty. This ephemeral nature was a major source of inspiration for the poets of the Kokin wakashû in which the sakura flower is, without a doubt, the queen of the Spring books.
The cherry blossom is not only present in the arts, it’s also an integral part of Japan’s national identity. On the darker side of history, its impermanent beauty was also manipulated for military purposes during the Second World War, as you can read it in the book Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms : The Militarization of Aesthetics in Japanese History, written by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney. It’s such a weird feeling when you see the photo of this kamikaze pilot with branches of cherry tree fixed on his uniform… the sakura was even used for naming some planes, the ôka［櫻花］, and a bomb named sakura-dan. The falling blossoms were seen as the symbols of the soldiers who sacrificed themselves for the emperor.
So that of course is the most unknown, bloody side of that flower’s history but fortunately the main association of the cherry blossom is not bombs and planes, but the hanami practice. Something that is still done today, and that is still associated with drinking sake 
What better way to enjoy the sight of the sakura than being a little (or a lot) euphoric and dizzy ? An auspicious combination indeed, one that can make you win five points in the hanafuda ［花札］ game.
花見で一杯 – 5点
The curtain on the sakura card is called a jinmaku［陣幕］. It is originally for military purposes, but here it was just suspended for enjoying the sight of flowers in a private space.
(image)
Fun fact : the hanafuda game was the starting point of the Nintendo company.
花札と屏風
If you have never played the game, the goal is to basically associate cards to make combinations and win points over your opponent. There are 48 cards divided in twelve months, with one flower, tree or plant associated with each month. All the sakura cards are associated to March.
The two cards on the right are basic, “plain” cards, so when you play it’s usually better to go for the two on the left. On the second card, the red ribbon is called a tanzaku［短冊］. It’s basically a long piece of paper on which you can write a poem.
We can read on this one みよしの［み吉野］. Yoshino is a place often mentioned in waka, it is still famous today for its thousands of cherry trees. み is just here I think a prefix that indicates a general feeling of appreciation and beauty, Laurel Rasplica Rodd writes み吉野 as “lovely Yoshino” in her Shinkokinshû translation.
We can also find depictions of tanzaku in folding screens, or byôbu.
桜楓に短冊図屏風 – 土佐光起
Source : the Art Institute of Chicago. If you click on “Educational resources” just below, there is a nice little PDF file where you can learn more about it. Folding screens like these are so beautiful and elegant. I have first read about them in this book, very expensive but gorgeous. It’s the same publishing house that has released an edition of the One Hundred Aspects of the Moon that I have already talked about in this thread.
If you want to learn how to play hanafuda, you can read about it here ; it’s also my source for the cherry cards image I’ve put. There is also a free game on Android (I don’t know if it’s also on the Apple Store) where you can play online. Also this one on Steam, really relaxing with the music and the background art that you can change.
For this Spring collection (this almost sounds like I’m presenting new clothes in a shop or something 
) I chose to present three waka and eleven haiku, along with other notes at the end.
There is really a lot of notes, so maybe you will not want to read everything at once.
All the haiku have been selected in two books that I have still not talked about in this thread ; you can read my opinion about these if you are interested.
Cherry Blossom Epiphany : The Poetry and Philosophy of a Flowering Tree
It’s a huge book, with a selection from a lot of different sources of 3000 poems – yes, you have read that correctly – of 17 moras mostly. It’s amazing, the book is quite unique, I had never heard before of Robin D. Gill but he has a really personal way to write and explain things, it feels almost like reading a discussion, like he’s directly adressing the reader in a casual way.
There is always the original Japanese text and very often several translations of the same poem (that’s part of his process and I think it’s interesting especially when there are ambiguities in the original text) plus the romaji and a literal “translation” word by word. There are sometimes some typing mistakes like a difference between the kana and the romaji (da in the romaji but ta in the kana) and that’s annoying but nothing too dramatic. There was also this little mistake where a translation was attributed to Steven D. Carter when it is actually from Helen McCullough (he also discusses some translations made by other persons) but again it’s really really minor.
He takes the time to discuss every poem, explaining when he had doubts in his translation ; there are a lot of cultural notes too. It’s really an enormous volume very dense in text, but it’s actually quite easy to navigate with the table of contents and the two indices.
The book can be enjoyed by anyone but all these qualities make it especially great for students of Japanese like us. And the fact that the original text is always present is very nice, this is so important ; something that should be done for every translated book of poetry in my opinion, for every language…
La Lune et moi
This is a small anthology of poems all coming from an haiku magazine named Ashibi, that I’ve never heard about before but is apparently really famous in Japan.
The book is in French but even if you can’t read this language it’s a bilingual edition. There is the original Japanese text with romaji for every poem. All the haiku are divided according to the seasons which is something I really appreciate ; since you have these four subdivisions you can jump from one to another according to your mood.
I think that it would be quite difficult to get the Ashibi magazines if you don’t live in Japan, at least I didn’t manage personally to find a way but if someone discovers it please let me know.
It was nice to come back to haiku for a while, after spending so much time translating waka. Since they are more concise they also feel easier and much less intimidating, especially the ones written in modern language ; but the translation is still challenging. A few of them were really hard ; one especially with this one word that felt like a Rubik’s Cube to analyze, there is a lot to read under this one with a cultural note about the shirabyôshi, a painting, photographies and anime screenshots too.
I would also argue that the extreme brevity of haiku sometimes make them more difficult to translate than waka. But they also feel… well, “lighter”, which to me goes along well with the airiness of these flowers if that makes sense.
古今集 0073 – 詠み人知らず
空蝉の世にも似たるか花ざくら咲くと見しまにかつ散りにけり
So similar to
this world of metamorphosis,
sakura blossoms –
as soon as they have bloomed
they are already scattering
空蝉［うつせみ］: this word is quite unique and interesting. Its literal meaning is understandable through the two kanji : empty/void + cicada ; the empty shell that the cicadas leave behind when they transform, which is a sign of impermanence and mutability. The other meaning is designating the world and the persons living in it.
I had to think about it a little when I did the translation, what would be the best way to express the two ideas at the same time ? And then it occured to me that the word “metamorphosis” might actually be good for this (and I also think it’s just a cool word by itself, both in pronunciation and meaning).
I looked up the exact definition and it turns out that besides the general meaning that you can apply to anything, it can also be used as a precize, zoology term for insects and amphibians. But I will admit that it’s still more implicit than the original text where we can directly understand, with the kanji, that we are talking about the cicada.
にも : the particle ni seems to establish here a comparison ; the words before ni will be compared later in the poem with something else (the sakura). And the mo is just an emphasis particle I think.
似たる［にたる］: the ren’yôkei of the kami-ichidan verb niru (to resemble) + the rentaikei of the auxiliary verb tari : I think that it’s indicating here the idea that an action has taken place and that it’s still continuing like this, the sakura are similar to this mutable world and their state will continue to be like that. It’s an auxiliary that I still have a hard time to totally understand.
か : this is here an exclamative ka, not an interrogative one.
と : it seems to be a citational particle linked to the verb 見る just after.
見しまに［みしまに］: so the way I understand this part is by cutting it in two : we have first 見し, which is to me the ren’yôkei of miru + the rentaikei of the past auxiliary ki ; and まに, which to me could be written like this : 間に, “moment” + the case particle indicating the time.
かつ : an adverb indicating either that A and B are happening at the same time, or successively.
散りにけり［ちりにけり］: the ren’yôkei of chiru (to scatter) + the ren’yôkei of the auxiliary nu indicating the completion of the action + the shûshikei of the auxiliary verb keri indicating a feeling of surprise and exclamation when the writer suddenly realises something. I could have used an exclamation mark but I felt like it was not necessary, it’s up to the translator though.
古今集 0097 – 詠み人知らず
春ごとに花のさかりはありなめどあひ見む事はいのちなりけり
Sakura flowers
every year at springtime
will be in full bloom –
but they will come into my eyes
only if I am still alive
ごと : a suffix meaning “every”.
さかり［盛り］: the prime, peak moment, full bloom.
ありなめど : let’s divide it :
– あり : ren’yôkei of ari［有り］ : to be, to exist ;
– な : mizenkei of the auxiliary verb nu indicating here the certainty that a certain action will be done ;
– め : izenkei of the auxiliary verb mu expressing a supposition about a future point in time (equivalent of –だろう in modern Japanese) ;
– ど : a concessive particle (but…).
So basically : “it will surely happen in the future, but…”.
あひ見む［相見む］: mizenkei of 相見る［あひみる］(to meet, to face, to see) + I think it is the rentaikei of the auxiliary む which is really key to make sense of the poem here. I’ve read in Shirane’s Grammar that the auxiliary verb む can be used to express “speculation about the future”.
いのち［命］: life.
なりけり : ren’yôkei of the copular nari (to be) + the shûshikei of the auxiliary keri indicating a feeling of surprise and exclamation when the writer suddenly realises something.
I feel like the meaning of this waka is a little bit implicit and hard to understand at first glance. The way that the two last lines are written feels strange to me especially, but here is how I understand the poem :
Every springtime → sakura flowers (this is a certitude, it will surely happen)
…but…
…seeing these flowers in the future = my life / being alive ! (which is not a certitude)
There is an implicit condition, a dependence to the state “being alive” since that, if you are not, well… obviously you will not be able to see anything. At least that’s how I understand it.
Once we understand the meaning of this waka it might seem obvious and almost stupid, like, yes, of course you need to be alive to see the flowers. But I really like how it underlines the uncertainty of what lies ahead of us in the future, and the fact that we often take it for granted as if it was a certitude that we will still be alive next year. When in reality, every hanami can be the last. The sakura flowers bloom only one time a year, for a very brief moment ; and a lot of things can happen in one year. Once you truly understand this and that you let this realisation make a deep shock inside you, it makes you see the blossoms (and all the other things and persons of this world) with an intensity that is much more stronger. It also makes you remember how fragile and uncertain life is.
古今集 0083 – 紀貫之
さくらのごと疾く散る物はなしと人のいひければよめる
Poem composed when someone said that there is not a single thing scattering as rapidly as cherry flowers
さくら花とく散りぬとも思ほえず人の心ぞ風も吹きあへぬ
Sakura blossoms
are said to scatter so quickly –
but how could I agree
when the human heart changes
before the touch of the wind
紀貫之：きのつらゆき
詞書
ごと［如］: this is used for making a comparison, like のように in modern Japanese.
疾く［とく］: an adverb meaning fast, quickly.
なし : I think that it would be 無し if it was written with the kanji ; it basically expresses the idea of non-existence.
と : quotative particle.
いひければ : I think it is :
– the ren’yôkei of iu［言ふ］(to say, to speak) ;
– the izenkei of the auxiliary verb keri designating here something in the past ;
– the conjunctive particle ba expressing here a temporal connection : “when…”.
よめる : izenkei of yomu［詠む］meaning “to compose a poem” + I am not totally sure but it seems to me that it’s the rentaikei of the auxiliary verb ri indicating the completion of the action. I’ve read in Shirane’s Grammar that this ri is following the izenkei of yodan verbs, so… knowing this also gives weight to this option.
This is a waka that we have already talked about in this thread but I never took the time to make a translation and a complete analysis, along with the kotobagaki.
和歌
散りぬ［ちりぬ］: the ren’yôkei of chiru (to scatter) + the shûshikei of the auxiliary nu indicating the completion of the action.
とも : I’m reading again the posts 38 and 40 that dorod had written on this thread but I’m not totally sure about it anymore. Does it really put emphasis on the negation ? In Shirane’s Grammar, it is written in the entry for とも that it can be used indeed for an “emphatic function” : it can consider something (let’s say a fact A) as an hypothesis to underline something else (a fact B). “Though it may be the case that…” “…sakura blossoms scatter quickly…” → “I, the author of this poem, do not think so”.
But even in cases like this where I am not totally sure of the grammar, as long as I understand the general idea of the poem it’s fine. This とも annoys me so much, it just feels weird and confusing to me.
思ほえず［おもほえず］: the mizenkei of 思ほゆ (to think of something naturally) + negative zu. Why 思ほゆ instead of the usual, normal 思ふ ? Well, the definition I’ve seen in Shirane’s Reader seem to imply a more spontaneous, natural way to think. But it doesn’t seem that important here to understand the poem.
“[Though it may be the case that] sakura blossoms scatter fast → (I) do not think so / it doesn’t seem like that (to me, in opposition to the person I answer to)”. At least that’s how I understand it.
ぞ : emphatic particle.
も : it also seems an emphatic particle, I think that it was this one that Helen McCullough translated as “even” : “even before a wind blows”.
吹きあへぬ［ふきあへぬ］: ren’yôkei of fuku (to blow) + mizenkei of the auxiliary verb 敢ふ［あふ］meaning “to do entirely, completely” + rentaikei of the negative zu.
I’m not totally satisfied of the translation “before the touch of the wind” because it implies that it changes before the wind has even started ; but the grammar seems to indicate that it changes before the wind has finished to blow. I tried to write the two last lines in several ways, something like “while the wind is only whispering” and other tries like that, but it didn’t really work at the end, especially if I didn’t want to have too many syllables.
峯鳥
雲と咲雪と散り行く櫻かな
like clouds they bloom,
like snowflakes they scatter ;
sakura blossoms
峯鳥 ： ほうちょう
…と …と : we can see here that these particles are basically establishing a comparison, a metaphor : clouds と → bloom / snow と → scatter.
櫻［さくら］: it’s the kyûjitai ［旧字体］for sakura, the ancient form of 桜 (this one is much more beautiful in my opinion, lighter and more elegant. The kyûjitai feels more heavy, and when we know the meaning of 貝 it’s distracting and ugly).
子規
花咲いて思ひ出す人皆遠し
sakura bloom
all the people in my thoughts
are far, far away
子規：しき
咲いて［さいて］: the modern –て form of 咲く (to bloom).
思ひ出す［おもひだす］: to remember. It’s written with ひ instead of い just because of the historical kana system［歴史的仮名遣い］［れきしてきかなづかい］. The author, Masaoka Shiki, was born in 1867 and died in 1902, several decades before the 1946 writing reform. ひ is an h-row kana and it appears here in the middle of the word, so it is actually pronounced い.
遠し［とおし］: distant, far away. It seems to me that this is the classical shûshikei since it ends with し ; in modern Japanese the 終止形 of –い adjectives ends with い (遠い).
The writer basically lived almost all of his life during the Meiji era ; was it a period of transition for the language ? I honestly don’t know enough to say anything about this, so I will just leave it at that. At the end of the day it really doesn’t matter for understanding the poem.
一茶
夕ざくらけふも昔に成にけり
nightfall sakura
what I lived today is
already the past
一茶 ： いっさ
夕［ゆう］: the evening. We can’t be totally sure how late it was though, was it just the beginning of the sunset or was the sky already very dark… that’s something that I often ask myself, what was the vision of the poet when he wrote that, the colors, etc. But the lack of details is also part of the charm of haiku, it leaves a lot of blank space where we can let our imagination paint I guess…
けふ : this poem uses the historical kana system. So when you have ふ or う following an e-vowel, the vowel is pronounced よう which gives us here k + yô : kyô or simply 今日, “today”.
も : it seems that there can be two meanings here : “too” or “even”. “Today, too (!)” or “even today (!)”.
に : this first ni indicates that mukashi is the result of the change indicated by 成.
成［なり］: the ren’yôkei of the yodan verb 成る which means “to change, to become”.
に : I think that it’s the ren’yôkei of the auxiliary verb nu indicating here the completion of the action.
けり : the shûshikei of the auxiliary verb keri indicating here a feeling of surprise, an exclamation when the writer suddenly realises something. This meaning can be associated with も, the haiku is basically expressing how surprised the poet is to realise that even if today’s events seem really close, now they are in the past. I was inspired by one of Robin D. Gill’s translations where he uses the word “already”.
一茶
死支度致せ致せと櫻かな
be ready to die –
prepare yourself ! say to me
the cherry flowers
死支度［しにじたく］: we have here 死［しに, ren’yôkei of shinu］(death) + 支度［したく, pronounced じたく because of the rendaku］(preparation).
致せ［いたせ］: the meireikei or imperative form of 致す, an humble way to say “to do”.
と : quotative particle. Like it’s often the case, the verb that should be after it (in theory) like iu or omou is simply omitted for artistic reasons.
一茶
来年はなき物のやうに櫻かな
like there will
never be another year –
sakura flowers
来年［らいねん］: the next year, or years.
やう : we have the historical kana system again. When you have ふ or う following an a-vowel, the vowel is pronounced おう which gives us here y + ô : yô or よう. We can then fall back on our feet with のように (“like…”) just like in modern Japanese.
なき物［なきもの］ : we have here the rentaikei of the ku-adjective 無し［なし］which basically expresses the idea of non-existence + the noun mono (“thing”). “like the next year is a thing that doesn’t exist ; sakura kana”. The original text didn’t have the kanji 物 ; it was all written in hiragana, but I thought it would be more useful to put the kanji, I also do that a little bit with waka to make the text more easily understandable.
幽印
花に酒や左の御手にて六七杯
flowers and sake –
with my left hand I drink six
or no, seven cups !
幽印 ： ゆいん
御［み］: an humble/polite/honorific prefix.
にて : I think that it’s just a case particle indicating the means. In modern Japanese it would surely be で.
杯［はい］: a cup for drinking sake.
子規
櫻々帰りは醉ふて白拍子
“sakura, sakura !” –
the women sing while going home,
drunken and dancing
櫻々 : I wonder if it’s referring to that famous さくらさくら song, you can find easily the vocal-version with all the lyrics on Youtube but I personally prefer much more the instrumental one.
醉ふて［よふて］: this is pronounced yôte / ようて. It looks so easy and innocent, right ? and yet… this part was very, very hard for me to understand. Not the general meaning (“drunk” + て where it looks like a conjunctive particle), but I like to get as close as possible to the 100% grammar comprehension, and I had never faced before what seems to be (for me at least) such a weird and complicated case. I spent a big amount of time on it, looking at my books, discussing with the GPT Japanese Classical Literature Teacher, searching online. At the end I tried to reorganise everything but I can’t ask any teacher to read what I wrote and to certify that I am correct, so please take this with a grain of salt :
Very long and annoying headache
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First of all, 醉 is the kyûjitai of 酔. The two kanji are interchangeable.
-
Is 醉ふて a classical or a modern form ?
It doesn’t seem modern, as we can see in a modern dictionary like Jisho where the –て form of 酔う is 酔って. By elimination I deduce that this is a classical form.
-
In the book of Robin D. Gill, 醉ふて is indicated to be pronounced as “yôte”. However, in classical dictionaries (Shirane’s Reader + the kobun online dictionary), I see that the basic form of the verb is ゑふ [酔ふ] ; “e-u” in romaji. I also see in Shirane’s Grammar examples of sentences where the verb is pronounced as “e + something”. I start to discuss this with ChatGPT, he tells me that the pronunciation evolved with time, it evolved to become later よう.
When I ask him about his sources, he gives me the name of three books. I search them online and they seem to exist, but I don’t have them so I can’t verify :
a) 山田孝雄『日本文法学概論』
b) 大野晋『日本語の年輪』
c) Vovin, Alexander. A Descriptive and Comparative Grammar of Western Old Japanese.
I push him again to give me another sources. I take one of the quotes he gives me and put it in a search engine, and I end up finding something else, a blog post. It is directly talking about the 酔ふ case. I don’t know if I can trust this source, but it’s the best I’ve got.
The key ideas :
– We don’t know until when exactly but, at some point in the ancient times, 酔ふ was really pronounced エフ（ウェフ）.
– Why this word became then pronounced like this : ヨウ ? The same happened for some other words, like 葉 for example. The on-yomi of 葉 was pronounced えふ, but at the Heian period, an euphonic change happened and made it pronounced ヨー. It is the same for 蝶 which changed from てふ to チョー, and we think that it is the same for ゑふ.
– In the native Japanese words, there was not a single verb other than ゑふ with the エ段＋フ form. When it became ヨウ, it was almost the only verb, among those who had a change in pronunciation, where even the pronunciation of the stem of the verb changed.
– In the historical kana usage standardized by the Meiji government, 酔ふ was still written as ゑふ. But it didn’t correspond with the reality of the language, of the pronunciation.
– Then, once that the historical kana system was abandoned in 1946 for the modern one, the historical kana system wasn’t corrected. It was left like this. So the official, historical kana orthography of 酔ふ is still written as ゑふ.
– There hasn’t been a reform but, today, the article says that in most Japanese-language dictionaries, the historical orthography of 酔ふ tends to be indicated as よふ. ChatGPT disagrees and says that it’s only “some” dictionaries, not “most”.
It was not indicated as よふ in Shirane’s Reader and the online kobun dictionary that I use, but that’s probably because they strictly follow the historical norm ? The use of the shinjitai 酔 is also curious, but it doesn’t matter anyway.
So, in classical language, ゑふ had already evolved to be pronounced よう just like in modern form.
About the temporality, the article talks only about the Heian period but here is what ChatGPT says : “During the Heian period, an euphonic change (音便) started occurring, shifting the pronunciation towards よう, a change that became fully established during the Muromachi period (1338-1573)”. So there seems to be an incertitude here, but it doesn’t matter that much ? And I still can’t be sure of what the AI says.
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So, in the poem, we have 酔ふ which is pronounced よう. This is confirmed by the book of Robin D. Gill where the romaji are indicating “yôte” for 醉ふて. In the historical kana system, when the kana ふ is at the end or at the middle of a word, it is pronounced う.
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What is the precise form that we find in the poem ? It is the ren’yôkei of the verb + the conjunctive particle て. But 酔ふ is a yodan verb, so in theory it should be 酔ひ + the particle て : 酔ひて. However, there is another phenomenon that comes into play.
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There is a phonetic change : the ウ音便. ひ becomes う for the ハ行 yodan verbs when they are in ren’yôkei and are followed by the conjunctive particle て → 酔うて which can be written 酔ふて with the ancient kana system (before 1946 ; the author of the haiku died in 1902).
In Shirane’s Grammar, it is written that most of the sound changes like theウ音便 have started “in the middle of the Heian period” which is way before the 19th century.
- Conclusion : the form that we find in the poem (醉ふて) is a classical form, it is the ren’yôkei of 醉ふ［よふ, pronounced yô］+ the conjunctive particle て. It is written 醉ふて instead of 醉うて because of the historical kana system.
…what a ride, huh ? I spent so many hours on this single little word, it was to me so complex and annoying, that’s typically the kind of situations where it would be so much better to just be in a classroom with an expert explaining things to me and answering my questions. Like I said at the beginning I can’t ask a teacher if I am wrong so even now I am still not sure that all of this is correct.
But anyway, like I said before for an other poem, as long as I understand the meaning it’s not that important for me to be totally sure of the grammar. With the kanji you immediately get the meaning, the idea of “drunk” ; and that’s the most important here.
白拍子［しらびょうし］: this word is really interesting. At the very beginning, it was used for naming one of the rhythms, a monotonous one, on which Buddhist priests were telling their prayers (声明［しょうみょう］). But then it went on to designate the dances who were done on these kind of rhythms and who appeared at the end of the Heian period, and the women who performed it. These dances were really popular between the end of the Heian period (794-1185) and the beginning of the Kamakura period (1185-1333).
The shirabyôshi were wearing a masculine noble outfit with a sword in a white scabbard ; they went on to dance with a 水干［すいかん］and a 袴［はかま］, with music instruments like the drum and the flute.
Since some prostitutes were really good at performing these dances, the word shirabyôshi also went on to designate them.
I’ve read all of this in this dictionary entry, which seems to be a solid and credible source. It also says that, in the 14th century, some new types of spectacles like the 猿楽［さるがく］or the 田楽［でんがく］were on the rise, to the detriment of the shirabyôshi dances who ended up absorbed by the 能［のう］theater.
We can also see in some paintings their headdress in the form of a cone, that’s surely a 立烏帽子［たてえぼし］but I don’t know if they always kept it.
Anyway, it’s typically the kind of case where it’s just necessary to have an extensive footnote for explaining things to the reader.
Here are some images I’ve found.
絵画
Shizuka Gozen, a shirabyôshi that is apparently really famous in Japanese history. She appears in the Heike monogatari, among other sources.
写真
How stylish are they, seriously ?!
All these photographies come from this website. Apparently you can book with this company a real shirabyôshi performance, but I think that it’s “just” a side-job for these dancers ? I would be really surprised if it was possible today to make a living like that but who knows ?
平家物語
Two other shirabyôshi named Giô and Hotoke are also characters in the Heike. Their story is quite depressing, even if there is a good ending for them. It’s fundamentally the same story in the book and the anime but it’s much better to read it, way more details and gorgeous lines of dialogue.
(Source : the two first episodes of the 平家物語 anime adaptation produced by サイエンスSARU)
It’s a hard word to translate, I even hesitated about just writing directly shirabyôshi.
I also find the temporality to be strange, the haiku was written in 1896 ; was there still remaining shirabyôshi at this point ? When I discussed it with ChatGPT he suggested me if I remember correctly that the writer could just use that word as an image, that he may be nostalgic of these figures of the past… maybe the women that he saw were just looking like shirabyôshi. But, in the book of Robin D. Gill, the commentary says that they managed to continue their existence by being prostitutes who were still singing and doing “skits”.
I’m still not sure about this. Like you can see in the link that I put in the 写真 paragraph, you can still see today some shirabyôshi performances. So it doesn’t seem that strange to think that, in 1896, there were still shirabyôshi who were doing this for their living, as a full-time job ?
The haiku also doesn’t precise if it’s one or several persons, but it seems more credible to think that it was a group. The verb “to sing” also doesn’t appear, but it’s implicit.
山頭火
いつとなくさくらが咲いて逢うてはわかれる
as soon as we met
we were already parting –
me and sakura
山頭火 : さんとうか
いつとなく : in the book of Robin D. Gill, the literal translation word by word was written like this : “sometime [not-obviously]”. I’ve seen it translated as “before one knows it”, “without knowing when”, “uncertain when”, “at no particular time”, “somehow”. When we take it literally it’s itsu (when) + to (?) + the adverbial form of nai (not). It’s quite hard to put into words, “I didn’t even know exactly when but we were already parting as soon as we met”. There is this interesting answer here saying that it shows that “something happened at some point, although it is not specified when”.
咲いて : the modern –て form of saku (to bloom).
逢うて［あうて］: it seems like we have once again the ウ音便. The classical verb is the ハ行 yodan 逢ふ (to meet) → the ren’yôkei is 逢ひ → and because it is the ren’yôkei followed by the particle て, ひ becomes う → 逢うて.
水原春郎
廃校の窓絢爛と飛花落花
school is closed – behind
the window, up and down they fly
the splendid sakura
水原春郎 : みずはらはるお
廃校［はいこう］: a closed school.
絢爛［けんらん］: an adverb taking the と particle and meaning “gorgeous, brilliant, dazzling” according to Jisho (this haiku seems very much like modern language to me).
飛花［ひか］: flying petals. There is this interesting yojijukugo that I really like with this word in it : 飛花落葉 ［ひからくよう］meaning “scattering of the blossoms and falling of the leaves; the impermanence of worldly things” (Jisho).
落花［らっか］: falling petals. With this word just after 飛花, it looks very close to the four character compound that I just talked about.
The poem is quite hard to translate because it’s very compact, a lot of informations in a few words.
I think that the scene can be imagined in a lot of different ways : was the writer inside the school, or outside ? Morning, noon or evening ? At the ground floor or third floor ? Was it just a day or two before the start of the school season ? (the fact that the school year is starting in April with the new life of the cherry blossoms also shows how deep of an impact these flowers have on this country).
石原八束
花に寝て散りくる花の雪崩とも
sleeping among
sakura, falling on me
like a snowslide
石原八束 ： いしはらやつか
雪崩［なだれ］: avalanche, or snowslide. In the book of Robin D. Gill the translation that was referred used the word “avalanche”, but I personally prefer “snowslide”. It feels like a more close, literal translation of the two kanji composing the word. It also underlines the resemblance with snowflakes in both shape and colour.
とも : in the word-by-word translation of Robin D. Gill, these two particles were indicated to be “as even”. It seems like と is saying “like” an avalanche, “as” an avalanche, and the も is just an emphatic particle.
I had first written a translation beginning with “opening my eyes” ; like the author was just waking up from sleep. But it felt too far from the original text. I guess it’s a matter of interpretation, we can imagine the scene in different ways.
西村椰子
息できぬまでに桜のふぶきくる
sakura blossoms
swirling like snow so fast I –
can’t even breathe
西村椰子 ： にしむらなぎこ
息［いき］: breath, breathing.
できぬ : negative form of できる meaning “to be able to”.
までに : I understand this as “to the point/extent that”.
ふぶき : it was written in hiragana in the book, but it must surely be 吹雪 meaning “snow storm” or “blizzard”.
くる : it seems to me that this just the usual “to come”.
I took some freedom in my translation with “even” and the cut after “I”, it doesn’t exist in the Japanese text. Is it good or not to stray away a little from the original ? I guess that’s a choice that every translator has to make at some point.
- I found this amazing GIF here ; it comes from the first episode of the 平家物語 anime adaptation, which is visually splendid by the way.
- Cherry – Slawek Fedorczuk
- Momotaro | Cherry Blossom – Slawek Fedorczuk
I would like to use this post as an opportunity to talk a little about some literary passages that I really appreciate. As we can see in the selection of poems that I just presented, sakura blossoms are an invitation to meditate about life, death, and the human condition. I was reading a little while ago some passages of Tsurezuregusa［徒然草］translated by Meredith McKinney in the Penguin Classics edition where it is accompanied by an other zuihitsu classic : Hôjôki［方丈記］by Kamo no Chômei, a text that I have already talked about a few times in this thread and that I had already read before in an other translation.
One passage of the Essays in Idleness particularly striked me, on one hand because it really resonated with me and on the other hand because it is very close to the KKS 0083 that I just presented in this post :
« How mutable the flower of the human heart, a fluttering blossom gone before the breeze’s touch – so we recall the bygone years when the heart of another was our close companion, each dear word that stirred us then still unforgotten ; and yet, it is the way of things that the beloved should move into worlds beyond our own, a parting far sadder than from the dead. » – translation by Meredith McKinney.
The beginning seemed so similar to the poem that I just had to look at the original writing on the UVirginia Japanese Text Initiative. See how these two compare :
風も吹きあへずうつろふ人の心の花になれにし年月を思へば、あはれと聞きしことの葉ごとに忘れぬものから、我が世の外になりゆくならひこそ、亡き人の別れよりもまさりて悲しきものなれ。
さくら花とく散りぬとも思ほえず人の心ぞ風も吹きあへぬ
It is so close that I find it almost impossible to be a simple coincidence, Kenkô was surely referencing to this poem, especially when there are other parts in his text where he makes references to other poems and other Japanese classics. This passage, for example, referencing a waka that I’ve already talked about in this thread :
« This world is changeable as the deeps and shallows of Asuka River – time passes, what was here is gone, joy and grief visit by turns, once splendid places change to abandoned wastelands, and even the same house as of old is now home to different people. The peach and the plum tree utter nothing – with whom can we speak of past things ? Still more moving in its transience is the ruin of some fine residence of former times, whose glory we never saw. » – translation by Meredith McKinney.
古今集 0933 – 読人しらず
世の中は何か常なる飛鳥川昨日の淵ぞ今日は瀬になる
In this world,
is there anything eternal ?
The Asuka River
yesterday a deep water
is today a shallow stream.
(Translation by me, post 35 of this thread. Looking back at it I don’t know if I like to have “River” riming with “water” ; perhaps I should have written something else for the fourth line, an other word that this one. But the overall translation is still fine I think.)
The Penguin Classics edition has a lot of notes and this Asuka River reference was explained ; but what I find strange is that there wasn’t one for 風も吹きあへず. Does it mean that it really was a coincidence ? Personally I tend to think that it was just a little oversight from the translator, it seems too close to Tsurayuki’s poem to just be the result of chance.
What I also find interesting is that I have read McKinney’s translation of Tsurezuregusa after having written my own translation of KKS 0083, and we both used the word “touch” for the wind (or “breeze”). Funny how the human brain works, we both had a similar mental process to end up using that word.
The Essays in Idleness have several great passages like these two, that resonate so much with me ; it’s a must-read just for these, even though some other ones are not that interesting. The passage 155 is amazing, we find once more this image of the river :
« There is no choosing your moment, however, when it comes to illness, childbirth or death. You cannot call these things off because ‘the time isn’t right’. The truly momentous events of life […] are like the powerful current of a raging river. They surge ever forward without a moment’s pause. Thus, when it comes to the essentials […] you should not wait for the right moment in what you wish to achieve, nor dawdle over preparations. Your feet must never pause.
Summer does not come once spring is done, nor autumn arrive at the end of summer. Spring begins early to hold summer’s intimations […] Still swifter are the changes through human life, from birth to old age, sickness and death. The seasons progress in a fixed order. Not so the time of death. We do not always see its approach ; it can come upon us from behind. People know that they will die, but death will surprise them while they believe it is not yet close. » – translation by Meredith McKinney.
The river, again, that we can also find in the very beginning of Hôjôki, powerful text as well, so sad. Throughout the whole read I was feeling some kind of existential anxiety if I can write it like that, some kind of confusion and despair over all the terrible events that Chômei is describing ; the natural disasters in front of which mankind was totally helpless like earthquakes for example (today, things are a little bit different with the anti-seismic engineering for example, and the other technological improvements to fight fires or other things like that but we are still very vulnerable of course. Especially when we talk about things like hurricanes and tsunamis, and the thousands of different illnesses that we are still unable to cure).
The text is not only talking about the suffering over natural disasters, it’s also a reflection on impermanence and attachment, and to me there is also this feeling of confusion ; as if Chômei was puzzled by the existence of the world itself, of living beings :
« Death in the morning, at evening another birth – this is the way of things, no different from the bubbles on the stream.
Where do they come from, these newborn ? Where do the dead go ? I do not know. Nor do I know why our hearts should fret over these brief dwellings, or our eyes find such delight in them. » – translation by Meredith McKinney.
At the other side of the world, more than 400 years later we can find a similar metaphysical questioning in the words of the French genius Blaise Pascal, in his Pensées (Thoughts) :
« Seeing the blindness and misery of man, looking at all the mute universe and the man without light abandoned on its own, and as lost in this corner of the universe without knowing who put him here, what he came here to do, what he will become at his death, incapable of any knowledge, I start to feel dread like a man that would have been carried asleep on a deserted and frightening island, and who would wake up without the knowledge and the means to get out. And on this I admire how we do not become desperate of such a miserable state. I see other persons besides me of a similar nature. I ask them if they have a better knowledge than me. They are telling me no and on this those miserable wanderers, having looked around them and having seen a few pleasant objects have given themselves to them and have attached themselves to them. As for me I couldn’t take to it any attachment […] » – translation by me.
French original text
« En voyant l’aveuglement et la misère de l’homme, en regardant tout l’univers muet et l’homme sans lumière abandonné à lui‑même, et comme égaré dans ce recoin de l’univers sans savoir qui l’y a mis, ce qu’il y est venu faire, ce qu’il deviendra en mourant, incapable de toute connaissance, j’entre en effroi comme un homme qu’on aurait porté endormi dans une île déserte et effroyable, et qui s’éveillerait sans connaître et sans moyen d’en sortir. Et sur cela j’admire comment on n’entre point en désespoir d’un si misérable état. Je vois d’autres personnes auprès de moi d’une semblable nature. Je leur demande s’ils sont mieux instruits que moi. Ils me disent que non et sur cela ces misérables égarés, ayant regardé autour d’eux et ayant vu quelques objets plaisants s’y sont donnés et s’y sont attachés. Pour moi je n’ai pu y prendre d’attache […] »
What a strange and mute universe indeed. Why is it there ? Why the Big Bang happened, exactly ? It is, to me, a never-ending source of both anxiety and wonder.
yeah I actually have the same opinion on that, I don’t really know if it would really be worth it… karuta doesn’t seem that fun either. The few poems I know by heart, I know them only because they are my favorites so it was just a natural process.
(I will never understand why though… especially here, the names of the poets are written in kanji, so why not including the original Japanese text for the poems too ?! even for the readers who can’t understand it, they can still appreciate the visual beauty of it). Anyways… There is so much content in that book, so many examples of jisei written by samurai, Buddhists, etc., before their death.
really a great set by the way, I will maybe buy other pieces to change the colours according to the seasons…)
I hope the reading was more smooth and enjoyable because of it.
The French edition is really pristine, they are specialized in those kind of luxury books. I ordered another one from the same editor, about folding screens this time, or byôbu［屏風］. My wallet is almost empty right now 
but like you said, that is a nice feature of visual art and poetry, one can make connections, perhaps that weren’t even intended by the artist.
When I wrote the post for Komachi’s poem (the 46th of this thread), I remember being a little bit confused by 経 ; I’ve seen in Shirane’s Reader that it has 3 definitions : “to spend, pass time/to pass by a place /to experience”. I wrote in my post that I took it as “to pass by a place (the world)” but that in the article that I had linked, it was taken in the sense “to spend time” (for this poem it’s close in meaning anyways ; she passed by the world, living here and spending time). I also wrote that there was a third meaning (besides 降る) : 旧る, to get old.
They are SO annoying, because I feel so often uncertain about them. Syntax and particles, those are the two hardest parts for me right now.
it makes such a big difference in being able to engage with the material. It’s super challenging, even as an observer, and I appreciate that you’ve put in the time and thought to make it accessible 
and thanks for the trophy 
disastrous study choices, ended up dropping out, studying something else that I don’t really like
2 degrees and 3 different professional fields !! That’s one of the great aspects of this WK forum, I can talk with people who have much more life experience than me
thanks as always for all the effort you put in!