#Basho #haiku #ume
One of Basho's final haiku is the opening poem in a short renga done with his student Shida Yaba
Ume ga ka ni
Noto hi no deru
Yamaji kana
I translate this as The fragrance of plum blossom Suddenly the sun rising On a Mountain path
Word for word in Japanese its plum fragrance at on place time marker suddenly sun of the rising (on) a mountain path.
Seems almost too simple
Ume can grow at quite high altitudes and think about the sequence of images
the fragrance of plums not the sight of pale flowers then suddenly the sun rising on a mountain path
the path winding up slope through or past plum trees in the pre dawn gloaming barely visible invisible maybe and then the sunlight reaches the path ...
This haiku will be one of the themes for works shared on Patreon and DeviantArt and other social media this month
Haiga coming soon!
... oh some thing else special about this month it can be written and read entirely with kana.
A Gwailo's View of Han Zi ! A Blog featuring my experiments with Han Zi and digital typographic art and articles on Chinese derived characters. Also some articles on Chinese characters in general and their use of multiple Asian languages.
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Sunday, 10 March 2019
Monday, 28 January 2013
Mukuge
So what's this photo got to do with Hanzi?
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| copyright julie vaux 2013 |
Well its a Hibiscus and maybe even judging from images I consulted the East Asian Hibiscus Syriacus sometimes called a Rose of Sharon in English and Mukuge in Japanese.
I think this purple flower may be a modern breeders development though?
The Mukuge is called Mugunghwa or GEUN or KUN in Korean and JIN in modern Chinese.
Perhaps it says something about the variety of colors various types of hibiscus come in that the phonetic part of the character below refers to yellow loess clay?
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| copyright julie vaux 2013 |
There's also a haiku by Basho referring to this plant which apparently horses as well as lovers of herbal teas find tasty.
Michi nobe no mukuge wa uma ni kuware keri.
Finally a reminder you are welcome to copy any images featured in this blog for educational and research purposes but do include a link back or shock me and use the paypal tip jar? Electricity isnt free and I do have wireless modem broadband costs?
Tuesday, 22 January 2013
kumpuu ya
#haiku #shiki #romaji #unihan
Kumpuu ya is the first line of a haiku by SHIKI.
It reads like this in Romaji kumpuu ya senzan no midori tera hitotsu
Buchanan translates kumpuu as summer breeze but in the kanji its KUN plus FUU.
Something like fragrant wind?
fragrant wind ! 1000 mountains of green temple single / only one
Shiki seems to have very deliberately chosen a certain word to express fragrance.
The Kun reading is kaoru or kaori also written by a different character but take a look at the hanji of the text.
Grass over smoke literally!
So is the fragrant wind coming from the green mountains or the temple?
And note its a single temple perhaps a very small one away up in the mountains not one of the greater monastic complexes but somewhere unnamed and genuinely remote deep in the mountain ranges of Japan's highlands?
Whether you're Japanese or Chinese or anyone who likes haiku studying hanji really helps to deepen one's understanding and appreciation tho I'ld be a lot more fluent than my mere smattering in modern asian languages if I spent less time reading classical verse?!
Support me via PayPal.me/JulieVaux
Kumpuu ya is the first line of a haiku by SHIKI.
It reads like this in Romaji kumpuu ya senzan no midori tera hitotsu
Buchanan translates kumpuu as summer breeze but in the kanji its KUN plus FUU.
Something like fragrant wind?
fragrant wind ! 1000 mountains of green temple single / only one
Shiki seems to have very deliberately chosen a certain word to express fragrance.
The Kun reading is kaoru or kaori also written by a different character but take a look at the hanji of the text.
 |
| Copyright Julie Vaux 2016 |
Grass over smoke literally!
So is the fragrant wind coming from the green mountains or the temple?
And note its a single temple perhaps a very small one away up in the mountains not one of the greater monastic complexes but somewhere unnamed and genuinely remote deep in the mountain ranges of Japan's highlands?
Whether you're Japanese or Chinese or anyone who likes haiku studying hanji really helps to deepen one's understanding and appreciation tho I'ld be a lot more fluent than my mere smattering in modern asian languages if I spent less time reading classical verse?!
Support me via PayPal.me/JulieVaux
Or PATREON PLEDGE ME
N.B. Patreon Pledgers at a higher level will be eligible for an ebook I'm compiling of some of my prior technozi posts. Wanna pledge and suggest a topic?
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