SHIKI ON SUMMER

#shiki #haiku #summer

SHIKI Masaoka

A HAIKU about SUMMER

#Hiragana #Romaji

くんぶぅゃ Kumpū ya!

せんざんのみどり Senzan no midori

てらひとっ Tera hitotsu

Kumpū also written kunpū

Kun 薰 Fragrance + Fu 風 Wind Breeze

Sen 1000 Zan is San Mountain of greem midori

Tera buddhist temple hitotsu one single

Fragrant Breeze !

Amidst a thousand green mountains

A single temple.

He must have been somewhere very remote for there to have been just one small temple and not a whole complex given the fondness of the Japanese for building temples and shrines atop mountains.

Fragrant breeze is a KIGO for summer or late spring so while I've seen one translator suggest pines for the source many trees flower in summer.

Perhaps a remote valley too small to be worth farming but just enough room for a shrine and trees?

Translating Haiku the word break problem

Translating #Haiku
the word break problem

An example from  #Chiyo

( this applies to other #japanesepoetry too! #tanka #waka )

So you have in front of you a copy of the #Japanese text in #kana or a mixture of kana and #kanji and maybe # romaji too ?
And you have a fair idea of what it means but you go to check the exact verb form being used to add to the notes for readers and you can't find the verb form of particle or whatever?

Is it your poor knowledge of Japanese or is it just possible some editor combined two words or split up a word when they should not have?
Plus Japanese word play giving something two meanings ...

Here's an example ... a well known haiku by #Chiyo (though I have come across one writer who claims the poem pre exists her  ... however as its a well known poem)

I'm not disputing the usual translations just pointing out a couple of features

the haiku in romaji

shibu karo ka
shiranedo kaki no
hatsuchigiri

Now I've seen several texts giving the first line as shibu karo ka but what if its
shibukaro ka ? A Verb? Most texts don't bother to explain this is a volitional form ... she's saying it is possible that an experience will be bitter but she does not ... shiranedo know  and  the use of the shiranedo form heightens this uncertianity!

Though shiranedo possibly should be printed shirane + do ?

Do is described by McCullough in her Bungo Manual as a concessive conjunctive particle that could be translated as even though or but

So perhaps the romaji text should be shibukaro ka shirane do hatsuchigiri ?

Whatever your choice but bear in mind while reading this haiku that there's both doubt and irony being expressed

Next time on Technozi Kaki Persimmons the first of which are appearing in Sydney's fruit stores !

Whether karo and do should be printed with a word break or as part of the verb in romaji knowing even a little bungo helps ?

Do try to get a cop of McCulloughs book if you can!

Ten Thousand Blessings to the person who gifted this to me a few years back!



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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.

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?!


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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?