Translation Series

VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1 - MAY 2001

Episode 1

The first installment in a four part article on the difficulties of haiku translation:

by haijin, teacher and author,

David Lanoue.

CONFESSIONS OF A TRANSLATOR

David Gerard Lanoue

Confessions of a Translator

David G. Lanoue

Introduction to David G. Lanoue

David G. Lanoue is quickly becoming synonymous with Issa. His interactive website project, The Haiku of Kobayashi Issa, has grown popular and expanded in size since its inauguration in April 2000. This is an interesting project whereby translation is understood to be a continuous process of evolution which allows for new interpretations and corrections. It is an alternative methodology to the traditional "definitive" translation, which has led to rigid and even arrogant attitudes on the part of translators from time to time. Lanoue's method provides flexibility and modesty with which translators can function.

Lanoue received Honourable Mention for this project in the World Haiku Achievements Competition of the World Haiku Festival 2000. The accolade reads in part:

Mr. Lanoue’s academic research into Kobayashi Issa has resulted in an enormous translation project of Issa’s poems into English... He has taken a "participatory" approach, involving other scholars and haiku poets alike in this project, and by taking their comments and criticism into account, he has improved his translation, a truly new way of democratic research activity in the Internet age.

In this series of four episodes, Lanoue reveals both the joy and trepidation of haiku translation. In this first episode, he shows how translation of a single haiku can and should change and develop as more research is done and more informed opinions are given to him.

Confessions of a Haiku Translator: Episode 1

David G. Lanoue

David Burleigh, one of the Working Group members of last year’s Masaoka Shiki International Haiku Awards, made the following observation in a discussion of translating haiku:

Whatever the results of an attempt at translation, be they good or bad, the exercise itself is valuable. This is because you have to examine the original so carefully, minutely scrutinising every word to clarify the meaning, and the effort that this involves brings you closer to the text than any other kind of reading.₈₂

Translation is a process of discovery, and as such, the products of such labor--i.e., translations--are always provisional, never the final word on what a particular poem can yet become in the target language.

It has taken me years to overcome my hubris as a translator and admit that even when I believe that I’ve captured the essence of a haiku, its image, action, feeling, and even basic meaning can shift under deeper scrutiny, making my first version appear embarrassingly inadequate. These days, older and wiser, I take comfort in the fact that such is the nature of translation. As Mr. Burleigh points out, good translation depends on good reading, and so when I discover new layers and nuances in the original text, even though this might cause me to shred an earlier translation, I’m consoled by the thought that my understanding of the haiku has deepened, and that I am passing on that understanding to others.

In 1991 I published 450 haiku in Issa: Cup-of-Tea Poems. Now, almost ten years later, I find myself re-translating many of those same poems for my online archive, The Haiku of Kobayashi Issa. With technical help from my son, Bryan Godfrey-Lanoue, and Bart Everson, a colleague at Xavier University in New Orleans; I launched the website in April 2000 at the Global Haiku Festival hosted by Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. At the time, the archive contained 600 poems in English and rômaji. Today, it presents over 2,000 English versions with rômaji, original Japanese texts, comments, haiku lessons, Issa’s biography, and general information on haiku. Unlike my printed book, such a project is no fossil. The interactivity of the Internet allows me to respond to critiques and suggestions made by readers from around the world, improving poems one by one while giving credit where credit is due. Since translation is provisional by its nature, the electronic medium seems ideally suited for it, allowing the archive to grow and change organically.

I could cite hundreds of examples that illustrate how my thinking about certain poems by Issa has evolved over time, but for the purpose of this essay, I’ll mention just three. But first an aside: in Japanese the decision as to whether a noun is to be thought of as singular or plural is often left to the reader’s imagination. This has enormous consequences for translators. Susumu Takiguchi points out that of 170 translations of Bashô’s “old pond” haiku, only three put “frog” in the plural. He asks,

Who decided that this haiku talked about only a single frog? ... It is not our usual experience to see a single frog in early spring in Japan, which is the time when this haiku was composed. Also, the sound of water is not normally a single plop, or splash. More importantly, the haiku depicts a cheerful and merry scene whereby frogs are noisy, and there’s life everywhere...far from the standard interpretation of a world of tranquility and eternal stillness. ₂₅

An exactly parallel example can be found in Issa. One of his most memorable images is that of a bird darting out of the nose of a Great Buddha statue:

daibutsu no hana kara detaru tsubame kana

from the great bronze

Buddha’s nose...

a swallow!

I translated the above in 1991 for my book, and this version remains in the online archive. I believe that it gets across the main idea and feeling of Issa’s original, but to paraphrase Susumu, “Who decided that this haiku talked about only a single swallow?” Bob Jones, in a 1996 version in Modern Haiku, imagines otherwise:

from Great Buddha’s

nose pour forth

swallows~ ₄₉

Like the frogs of spring, swallows tend to appear in groups, so is it not logical to assume that the Great Buddha has sneezed forth a flock? On the other hand, if Issa’s bird is solitary, the feeling in the haiku is more comic, I believe, like the old adage about a mountain laboring to give birth to a mouse. Lacking contextual clues from Issa’s diary, we must admit that there could be one swallow, there could be many. Any single translation, either way it goes, is semantically incomplete. Personally, I like both versions, mine and Bob’s, but they are indisputably different poems.

I mentioned the lack of diary clues in the above example because this is something that the translator of Issa ignores at his or her peril. Here’s a poem that I completely flubbed in 1991:

shônin ni mi-hana saretaru sakura kana

Buddha’s saints

don’t care

cherry-trees bloom ₂₉

When I rendered it in this way, I assumed that the haiku was referring generally to unworldly holy men who can turn their backs to the ephemeral glory of spring’s cherry blossoms. A few years later, however, I took the time to examine the poem’s diary context. It appears in Bunka kuchô (Bunka Era Haiku Notebook) after a long prose anecdote about a local holy man named Tokuon, who endured cold and heat, rain and snow, staying on his rugged mountain preaching Amida Buddha’s way to wild boars and apes. As an act of supreme generosity, this Tokuon came down from his mountain to preach to human beings at Ryôzen Temple, leaving his beloved wild cherry blossoms behind (Issa zenshû 2.200). In light of its context, the haiku’s meaning and feeling have completely changed for me. The holy man is plainly singular, and his turning his back on the blossoms contains a bittersweet poignancy that I simply didn’t see before. Here’s my corrected version:

the holy man looks

no more...

cherry blossoms

But even translated in this way, the poem alone fails to convey Issa’s full meaning. His prefatory anecdote is essential to the haiku, indicating that it is a good idea to include, as I have done in the website, prose commentary in certain cases.

A final example of a haiku about which my understanding is evolving illustrates the importance of colloquial idiom. The poem concerns a person who is going off to look at the cherry blossoms. Its third phrase, bashiyori kana, is problematic. I couldn’t find bashiyori in my dictionaries, so I knew that some sort of idiom was involved, perhaps an archaism. Hoping for insight, I turned to earlier translations. The original poem goes:

sakura e to miete jin-jin bashiyori kana

Nobuyuki Yuasa renders the poem:

With feeble steps

The old man

Totters by--

To look at flowers ₄₀

And Sam Hamill translates:

Full cherry blossoms--

his old hip tentative under

tucked-up kimono ₅

Of the two versions, Hamill was the more helpful. His third phrase, "tucked-up kimono," revealed the meaning of bashiyori--the climax of the poem that Yuasa strangely left out. I was puzzled, though, that both translators viewed the man as frail. In Yuasa’s version he “totters by,” and his "old hip" is “tentative” according to Hamill. Just because the man is old, does that make him totter? And why is his kimono tucked up? Its placement in the haiku as the third phrase suggests the importance of this detail, but what might that importance be?

The editors of Issa zenshû confirm Hamill’s translation of the last phrase (jin-jin bashiyori) as "tucked-up kimono." They elaborate: Jin-jin bashiyori is a euphonic exchange for jijibashori, an old man’s tuck-up. The kimono’s rear hem is lifted and inserted into the knot of the sash [obi] (6.136, note 28). So now we have the picture, but what does it mean? I found a clue in a Japanese book published in 1949 by Fujimoto Jitsuya. About this haiku he writes (and I translate): His kimono hem is tucked up so as not to hinder his stride ₄₃₄. In other words, the man, despite his age, is dressed for speed, suggesting the rejuvenating power of the blossoms as he tucks up his kimono and rushes off to view them:

off to view cherry blossoms--

old man with kimono

tucked

He’s neither tottering nor tentative. On the contrary, the old man exudes joyous vigor. The cherry blossoms, for him, have become his Fountain of Youth.

But wait. As further proof that translation is a never-ending process, I received more questions than answers concerning the above haiku when I submitted the original draft of this essay to this journal. The editor, Susumu Takiguchi, wrote in an email (4/17/01):

This is one of the more difficult haiku to translate. Such obvious things as identifying the hidden subject is the first hurdle. However, there are more intractable problems.

Let us look at it more closely. First and foremost, the interpretation of "e to" (towards) in "sakura e to" does not sit well with "miete" and does not make clear sense. "Miete" could be the biggest problem. If it was "mite," it would indicate at least that there is a subject. Who is seeing what? Is it the poet? Or is it someone else?

The next problem is "jin-jin bashiyori "... an action whereby a man picks up the centre-back of the hem to his kimono and tucks it to his obi sash at the back of his waist. By doing it, his legs would be given freer movement and it is presumed that a man does this when he wants to do something, such as walking a long way as in a walking journey, dancing or engaging in an active action. It is not clear if this noun only refers to old men, or men in general.

So the man with tucked-up kimono might be several men, and he or they might or might not be old! On the latter point, Mr. Takiguchi observes, it could be a group of people who have done this particular act, for the purpose of dancing under the cherry blossom, for example. And, he adds, Issa himself might be the subject, since at the time of composition he was 56 by Japanese reckoning, “a ripe old age by the standards of the day.

If Issa were the hidden subject himself, then it could be something like: Issa was somewhere (at home, on an errand etc.) when had the reason to know that cherry blossom viewing was possible or being done. He then decided to do the viewing himself and hitched his kimono’s hem up and tucked it to the obi sash at the back of his waist and began to proceed towards the cherry blossom. It is well-known that Issa wrote a lot of haiku about himself, so, should this one not be one of them?

After assuring me that Hamill was right to translate the garment as “kimono” (in the first draft I had the old man anachronistically wearing trousers), Takiguchi concludes:

What all this means is that this particular haiku needs much more research to be done into it and that a final or definitive interpretation is far from being close. Against the points I have made, both Yuasa’s and Hamill’s translations may contain mistakes. My intention here is not to look into their possible mistakes as it needs more research but to point out that the translation of haiku is an evolutionary process which should allow for new evidence and interpretations.

Like the little snail inching up the side of Mount Fuji in Issa’s famous haiku, the important thing is the journey, not the destination. The translator, on a journey of discovery, will never reach the top of the sacred mountain. And though he or she might be a perfectionist, his or her translations will not be perfect. This is why the Internet seems custom-made for sharing, critiquing, and improving literary translations. In the first year of my own web project, I received the generous help of several visitors--scholars of Japanese literature and haiku people with keen ears and eyes. Thanks to them, the contents of the archive--its elusive and provisional translations--continue to become sharper and more faithful to Issa’s original vision as we collectively learn to read more deeply into, and better appreciate, his art.

WORKS CITED

Burleigh, David. David Burleigh’s Comment. International Haiku Convention 2000: Masaoka Shiki International Haiku Awards. Ehime: Ehime Culture Foundation, 2001. 82-84.

Fujimoto Jitsuya. Issa no kenkyû. Tokyo: Meiwa Insatsu, 1949.

Hamill, Sam. The Spring of My Life and Selected Haiku by Kobayashi Issa. Boston & London: Shambala, 1997.

Issa (Kobayashi Issa). Issa zenshû. Nagano: Shinano Mainichi Shimbunsha, 1976-1979. 9 vols.

Jones, Bob. Seasonality. Modern Haiku 27, No. 3 (1996): 47-50.

Lanoue, David G. The Haiku of Kobayashi Issa. http://webusers.xula.edu/dlanoue/issa/ (2000-01)

-----. Issa: Cup-of-Tea Poems: Selected Haiku of Kobayashi Issa. Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1991.

Takiguchi Susumu. Japan Has Embarked on Her Voyage to World Haiku. Proceedings of The 1st International Contemporary Haiku Symposium. Tokyo: Gendai Haiku Kyôkai, 1999. 23-25.

Yuasa Nobuyuki. The Year of My Life: A Translation of Issa’s Oraga Haru. Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1960; 2nd ed. 1972.

Vol. 1, Issue 2: August 2001

Confessions of a Translator

David G. Lanoue

Louisiana, USA

David's translations are based on Issa zenshû (Nagano: Shinano Mainichi Shimbunsha, 1979. Vol. 1). Some of the translations first appeared in the book, Issa, Cup-of-Tea Poems, Tran. David G. Lanoue (Asian Humanities Press, 1991). Others are taken from his light-hearted novel, Haiku Guy (Red Moon Press, 2000).

David is currently a full professor of English at Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans. Since 1984, he has have published his original haiku, translations, and haiku-related essays in various magazines and anthologies, and he conducted research in Japan from 1987 - 1988. Read more about David at his website, but first, enjoy the second episode in his essay series, Confessions of a Translator!

Confessions of a Haiku Translator: Episode 2

To Comment or Not to Comment?

David G. Lanoue

As a one-breath burst of language, a haiku must say everything in that one breath. A haiku is immediate and experiential:

ore to shite niramekura suru kawazu kana

locked in a staring

contest

with a frog

This well-known verse by Issa doesn't seem to need explication for a reader, even a child, to "get" it. Yet one's appreciation deepens when one reads it in the context of Issa's diary. The haiku appears in two journals: Hachiban nikki ("Eighth Diary") and Oraga haru ("My Spring"). In the first text, it is prefaced simply with the phrase, "Sitting alone" (4.236), but in Oraga haru, a lengthy anecdote about the drowning of an eleven year-old boy precedes it. Issa attended the child's cremation and was so moved that he composed a waka in which he compares the boy to fresh, new grass turned to smoke so soon after it has sprouted. He then wonders out loud,

"Will not even the trees and plants one day become Buddhas?"

He immediately answers his own question:

"They, too, will acquire Buddha nature" (6.137).

And then, as if continuing a single thought, he writes the phrase,

"Sitting alone," and inserts the haiku:

locked in a staring

contest

with a frog

In the context of Oraga haru, then, this humorous verse about a frog and a poet has a distinctly Buddhist flavour. Issa reminds the reader that all beings, including plants, are on a karmic path toward enlightenment. Thus, when he engages in a staring contest with a frog, he is communing with an ancient fellow traveller. Buddhist truth lurks inside the comedy of the moment. Issa and the frog are peers.

He referred to himself as issa-bo haikaiji, Priest Issa of Haiku Temple. His Buddhist way of life, and way of thinking about that life, profoundly influenced his art. He lived and professed the precepts of the popular Jodoshinshu (True Teaching Pure Land) sect. To translate Issa with sensitivity, one must become familiar with key concepts of this school of Buddhism, as the Japanese critics Murata Shocho and Kaneko Tohta suggest. Issa's haiku are often predicated on Jodoshinshu concepts of sin, grace, faith, and salvation, as in the following example.

hana oke ni cho mo kiku ka yo ichi daiji

on the flower pot

does the butterfly also hear

Buddha's promise?

The key phrase is the third: ichi daiji. Literally, it denotes, "one great thing." Yet if a translator leaves it at that, the reader is presented with a technically correct but baffling poem:

on the flower pot

does the butterfly, too,

hear One Great Thing?

In the context of Buddhist belief, the "one great thing" that the haiku refers to is Amida Buddha's promise to rescue all sentient beings who invoke his name, ensuring their rebirth in his Western Paradise, the Pure Land. Here, Issa wonders if the butterfly also hears the good news of salvation-a universal salvation that applies to it as much as it does to the human poet and his readers. Its stillness, to Issa, implies attentiveness. The butterfly thus embodies innocent, natural piety and serves as a role model for all.

The French translator, Titus-Carmel, renders the third phrase of this haiku, "la Grande Unité" (31), transforming "one great thing" into "the Great Unity." It's a brilliant solution, given the fact that she chooses to present Issa's poems without critical comment. However, a vague notion of cosmic unity is not really the focus of this poem. Issa and his butterfly are contemplating a quite specific "great thing": Amida Buddha's vow to allow their rebirth in the Pure Land-a metaphor for enlightenment.

According to its prescript in the two texts in which it appears, this haiku was inspired by a memorial service that Issa attended (Issa zenshu 2.467; 9.222), suggesting a temple scene wherein the faithful congregation might be chanting the nembutsu ("Namu Amida Butsu"), the Pure Land prayer invoking the name of Amida Buddha and celebrating his "causal vow" to save sentient beings. Or, as R. H. Blyth visualizes the scene, a priest might be preaching a sermon before an image of Amida (2.552). Either way, the haiku's prescript evokes a religious setting in which a butterfly clings to a vase, and the poet asks, "Does it hear the Great News too?"

The poem happens to be a revision of an earlier piece:

aka tana ni cho mo kikuka yo ichi daiji

on the red shelf

does the butterfly also hear

Buddha's promise?

In the original version, the butterfly rests on a red shelf, a shrine that contains an image of the Buddha along with offerings such as water and flowers (Issa zenshu 2.426, note 3). Without intent or calculation, it has landed in the lap of Buddha's mercy. The question in the haiku is purely rhetorical-for Issa. Of course the butterfly hears Buddha's promise!

Wittgenstein showed a long time ago that language never occurs in a vacuum but always as part of human activity or "a form of life" (11). To participate in a language game-haiku, sonnet, limerick, novel-one must learn its rules. One must never play badminton as if it were tennis. "Haiku Priest Issa" creates an enlightened poetry that describes not an escape from the world, but an escape into it. According to Shinran, the founder of Issa's sect, once one has reached enlightenment, he or she returns to this world of suffering as a new bodhisattva-a living saint-with the loving purpose of awakening others still trapped in their self-made hells of craving, paranoia, and hopeless calculation. Issa urges us to trust simply and utterly in the saving grace of Amida: to sit quietly with eyes and ears open-like an unblinking frog or a frozen butterfly. We must pay attention to what silence is telling us.

Critical commentary would have been superfluous for Issa's original readers, but I think it's essential today. The translator of haiku, like it or not, must also become a critic, revealing cultural contexts and linguistic rules of game that Issa and other masters would have taken for granted. As a critic, the ultimate goal is to become useless. Once a reader grasps the key concepts that shape haiku, he or she can throw out the notes and enjoy each poem, one breath at a time, on its own terms.

NOTES

Blyth, R. H. Haiku. Tokyo: Hokuseido, 1949-1952; rpt. 1981-1982 [reset paperback edition]. 4 vols.

Issa (Kobayashi Issa). Issa zenshu. Nagano: Shinano Mainichi Shimbunsha, 1976-1979. 9 vols.

Murata Shocho. Haikai-ji Issa no geijutsu. Shimonoseki: Genshashin, 1969.

Titus-Carmel, Joan. Issa: Haiku. Vendome: Éditions Verdier, 1994.

Kaneko Tohta. Issa kushu. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1983; rpt.1984.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Tran. G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1953.

Vol. 3, Issue 1: March 2003

WHCessay - David G. Lanoue

Confessions of a Haiku Translator: Episode 3

A Little Help From My Friends

David G. Lanoue

Louisiana, USA

In his novel, Snow Country (Yukiguni), Yasunari Kawabata's protagonist, Mr. Shimamura, has a strange hobby. Though he has never in his life attended a Western ballet, he decides to start doing research on this art form. He begins a long, laborious study of ballet without ever attempting or even wanting actually to see one; he collects photographs, foreign books, programs, posters...and on this basis alone starts to write about Western ballet. Kawabata notes wryly.

Nothing could be more comfortable than writing about the ballet from books. A ballet he had never seen was an art in another world. It was unrivaled armchair reverie, a lyric from some paradise. He called his work research, but it was actually free, uncontrolled fantasy. (25)

As a Westerner who has taken upon himself the study and translation of Japanese haiku, I find myself in an embarrassingly similar position to that of the absurd Mr. Shimamura. Sitting at my desk with my dog-eared dictionaries and nine volumes of Issa's collected works, I have wondered from time to time: Are my translations and proclamations mere "armchair reverie" and "uncontrolled fantasy"? After all, I wasn't born in Japan; I'm not a native speaker. Much of Japan's culture lies beyond my experience and grasp, no matter how many dictionaries I consult or summers I spend traveling there. How, then, can I translate with confidence the words of a poet like Issa--words packed with rich cultural resonances of the sort that non-Japanese readers on their own simply can't "get"?

I used to think I could do it alone, but my Shimamura days are over. Thank God I have friends!

Some of these friends I have not physically met. During my visits to Japan, I've made it a ritual to buy every book about Issa that I can lay my hands on. In these books, simple footnotes or passing comments by Japanese scholars can bring crystal clarity to otherwise fuzzy, obscure, or opaque haiku. For example, a few months ago I translated this one by Issa:

binzuru no me bakari hikaru kesa no yuki

Binzuru’s eyes

glittering...

this morning’s snow

Obviously, this meant something to Issa and to his audience, but what? Who is this Binzuru person? Why are his/her eyes glittering? Without a contextual understanding of Binzuru, the haiku falls flat. For an answer, I turned to my pile of books. Two of them proved to be helpful. Maruyama Kazuhiko comments that Binzuru is a Buddhist saint, one of the "16 Enlightened Ones." Folk custom dictates that if one prayerfully rubs his image, he or she will recover from illness (223, note 1169). Another Japanese scholar, Yoshida Miwako, says this about the haiku: inside a dark temple, votive lamps darken Binzuru's image with soot, but his glass eyes still glitter. It's a pitiful feeling, Yoshida adds, those lonely, glittering eyes in the gloom (186). On this gray winter day, then, the first big snow of the year twinkles much like Saint Binzuru's eyes. Armed with this information, I emended my translation thusly:

binzuru no me bakari hikaru kesa no yuki

like Saint Binzuru’s

eyes glittering...

this morning’s snow

More aggravating than allusions to obscure saints, sometimes a haiku can seem a garbled mess even when its individual words are plainly understood, as in this example:

hana-geshi no fuwakku yô na maeba kana

the poppy looks

past forty...

front teeth

The words lie on the page lifelessly. What on earth does the poppy looking "past forty" have to do with "front teeth"? Again, I turned to Yoshida for an answer. When Issa wrote this haiku in 1812, he was 50. Yoshida believes that the poem alludes to the poet's own aging process, including the loss of teeth (188). The poppy, with petals missing, looks old and bedraggled. Based on Yoshida's commentary, I emended my translation:

hana-geshi no fuwakku yô na maeba kana

the poppy looks

past forty...

missing teeth

Here's another case where a merely literal translation appears meaningless:

ikubaku no hito no abura yo ine no hana

how many people's

oil!

rice blossoms

What does "oil" have to do with a rice field laden with blossoming heads of grain? According to Maruyama, "oil" (abura) is used as a euphemism for labor and its results (314, note 1691). As Issa gazes upon the rice field ready for harvest, he is reminded of all the hard work, all year, that went into it. Thanks to my good friend Maruyama, I accordingly revised:

ikubaku no hito no abura yo ine no hana

how many people

sweated and toiled!

rice blossoms

Sometimes Japanese scholars have helped me directly. Last summer I visited the Shiki Museum in Matsuyama. Its president, Hasegawa Takashi, was kind enough to meet with me and exchange views on Issa. He showed me this early poem by Issa written in 1795, when the poet toured the island of Shikoku and Matsuyama:

ne-koronde chô tomaraseru soto yu kana

lying down

with a visiting butterfly...

outdoors hotspring

This poem has the prescript, "Aiming for Dogo Hot Spring." Mr. Hasegawa explained: the hot spring Issa enjoyed that day was an open air pool of overflow water to the west of Dogo Spa in Matsuyama. Issa didn't realize that the pool was intended for horses and cows, not people. Without Mr. Hasegawa's helpful comments, I would not have grasped the humor of Issa's situation: the blithely unaware out-of-towner soaking in cow water. This is the kind of "being there," contextual humor not found in the haiku itself or in its prescript. Thanks to Mr. Hasegawa, I have added this poem to my online archive along with an explanatory note, crediting his help.

Last summer I met another Japanese scholar, Kobori Hiroshi--a quiet, gentle man who shares my passion for Issa. Hiroshi-san has assisted me with several translations and annotations, for which I give due credit on my website. For instance, this haiku made absolutely no sense to me until Hiroshi stepped in to help:

sena misei sakubei-dana no ume danbee

It has the prescript, "Kasai speech," an eastern dialect of Japanese spoken in the region between the Nakagawa and Edogawa rivers. In this dialect, according to Hiroshi, sena means "older brother" and danbee is the equivalent of de arou ("I guess"). With this information, I managed my own English version:

sena misei sakubei-dana no ume danbee

brother, look!

Sakubei’s shop has

plums

Hiroshi also brought to my attention, and lent a hand with, this one:

tabi-bito ya no ni sashite yuku nagare nae

the traveler fixes

the farmer’s floating

rice stalks

As we rode the train from Nara to Kyoto one rainy afternoon, he described how he visualized the scene: a traveler, walking along, notices rice stalks floating loosely in a flooded field. In an act of spontaneous kindness, he stops to stick them back into the mud so that they can grow. Issa uses the word no (field) instead of ta(rice field) because the mention of nae (rice stalk) already plainly indicates that it is a rice paddy. To use bothta and nae in the haiku would be "too much," Hiroshi said with a smile.

Without the insights of my Japanese comrades in their books, email messages, and in face-to-face conversations, my understanding of Issa would much spottier. I have said this in an earlier installment of this series, but it bears repeating: the Internet with its interactivity provides an especially powerful tool for scholars and readers of haiku to come together and collaborate. Because you, dear reader, are "out there"--checking my work, questioning, challenging, sharing--I trust that together we will achieve something more substantial than Kawabata's nutty ballet "expert" in his lonely study. For that, I am grateful.

Works Cited

Kawabata Yasunari. Snow Country, Tran. Edward G. Seidensticker. New York: Perigee, 1981.

Kobayashi Issa, Tran. David G. Lanoue. http://webusers.xula.edu/dlanoue/issa/

Maruyama Kazuhiko, Issa haiku shû), Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1990; rpt. 1993.

Yoshida Miwako (Issa burai. Nagano): Shinano Mainichi Shimbunsha, 1996.

Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827) was one of the most prolific of Japan's haiku poets, leaving thousands of one-breath masterpieces for the world to enjoy. Only a small fraction of his life's work has been translated into English. Translator, David G. Lanoue's interactive website, The Haiku of Kobayashi Issa, offers an archive of over 2,400 of Issa's haiku. Readers can search the archives by keyword, read the texts in English and see original Japanese texts and comments on Issa's haiku. A biography of Issa is provided, and recently, interactive lessons have been added. New to the site are a "Random Haiku" button for reading Issa's poetry, and also a "Flash Search" program in which you can view the haiku in the archive while a nature scene slowly changes colors--according to each poem's season. This function was designed by David's son, Bryan Godfrey-Lanoue.

David is currently a full professor of English at Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans. Since 1984, he has had published his original haiku, translations, and haiku-related essays in various magazines and anthologies. He conducted research in Japan from 1987 - 1988. Read more about David at his website, but first, enjoy the third episode in his essay series, Confessions of a Translator!