The Seashell Game - Round 4

[David Lanoue]

Sure, Gabi. Here is Ueda's translation of the two haiku, FYI:

How like it is to
A midwife's right hand--
Crimson maple leaf!

"I haven't crimsoned.
Come and look! So says the dew
On an oak branch.

[Gabi Greve]

Whow, thanks for sharing indeed !

Gabi


How like it is to
A midwife's right hand--
Crimson maple leaf!

"I haven't crimsoned.
Come and look!" So says the dew
On an oak branch.



David

it's become a midwife's
red right hand...
maple leaf

no autumn reddening for me -
come look!
oak branch dew

.

[Lorin]

Poet LEFT: "real" name Sanboku

it's become a midwife's
red right hand...
maple leaf


Poet RIGHT: "real" name Dasoku

no autumn reddening for me -
come look!
oak branch dew

I put "real" in quotes since these were their made-up haiku names, just as "Basho" was.

Here's what Basho had to say about these two haiku, as translated by Makoto Ueda in Matsuo Basho (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1970) 149.

The first poem employs a unique conceit in dealing with the subject of colored leaves. The second is well said, but it shows the poet to be a man of queer tastes: he likes a colorless oak tree and has no liking for the world of colors. The first poem suggests, with its lines about a midwife's red right hand, that the poet is well versed both in the art of love and in the skill of giving birth to vigorous language. It ranks thousands of leagues above the second poem. Therefore, if invited to come and look at such a happy product, the writer of the oak poem should withdraw his wooden sword and flee.

What do you think of Basho's judgment--both its content and tone? Does it tell us anything about our view of haiku in the 21st century? Are we still playing the Seashell Game by the same rules--or have the rules of what constitutes a good haiku changed over the past 339 years?

Hi David,
              My apologies for coming back to this a bit late.

It's fascinating to read Basho's judgment! And interesting that, although phrased differently (and more succinctly and confidently) that Basho's conclusions are not unlike those of ours, who participated in this 'seashell game'.

Quite what to make of the tone I'm not certain, but I'll hazard a guess that it's a humorous tone and used in the context of a group of people who trust his judgment and are not too thin-skinned. One thing Basho had going for him that we don't, in ELH and on the internet, is a shared culture and a shared vernacular. I'll even hazard a guess that there are sexual innuendos and playful jibes in Basho's commentary that would have some contemporary blokes (unless they were in a group who knew each other well, where anything goes) furious about 'insults to their manhood'.

I can see that Basho might've well been much loved for his playful humour.  :D

- Lorin

- Lorin

[Lorin]

...and I must add, the comparison between David's English versions and Ueda's, is revealing, too.

How like it is to
A midwife's right hand--
Crimson maple leaf!

"I haven't crimsoned.
Come and look!" So says the dew
On an oak branch.

- Ueda


it's become a midwife's
red right hand...
maple leaf

no autumn reddening for me -
come look!
oak branch dew

- David

To me, 'it's become a midwife's red right hand' is stronger than 'How like it is to
A midwife's right hand', as well as fulfilling the EL haiku norm of "showing, not telling", whilst "I haven't crimsoned" is painfully awkward and embarrassingly 'cute' in English, whatever it might be in Japanese.

The comparison shows, to me, that a translator needs to keep the contemporary audience as well as the target language (the language something is being translated into) in mind.

"crimsoned" ! We might've been able to get away with it in the C17.

- Lorin

[sandra]

Poets participating in David's sea-shell games may be interested in reading a new article by John Carley on the trials and tribulations of translation from Japanese to English. Read it here:

http://www.poetrysociety.org.nz/monthlyarticle

Best,
Sandra

[Don Baird]

Great link.  Thanks!

Don

[David Lanoue]

I appreciate your reflections, Lorin. Indeed, our 21st century judgment was, for the most part, closely in tune with Basho's. The midwife's bloody hand is a strong and daring image. I'm a little surprised that no one questioned the use of metaphor--a rhetorical ploy that is out of fashion in EL haiku these days. Maybe we forgive the leap from midwife's hand to the autumn leaves because the juxtaposition is so striking and original. Maybe Basho felt the same way. Still, there's a problem with metaphor, even a bold one like Sanboku's: for me, as a reader, there's too much cleverness in it--akin to the use of rhyme but not quite as bad--that pulls me away from the moment and into a consciousness of the poet's wit. As such the poem puts artifice in the foreground instead of hiding it in the background, as great poets (from Basho on down to 2011) have done. I have a feeling that this poem, even though it's the better of the two, wouldn't be accepted for publication today.

I thank all of you for participating in these Seashell Games. If you feel like adding more thoughts, please do. Otherwise, we can all pat ourselves on the backs for a job well done: a high-level discussion that (as I think I've said before) made me feel like I was in a graduate seminar--the kind of course that I wish had existed back when I was a grad student. Ah well, better late than never.

Speaking of late, as I write this it's approaching 3:00 a.m. on Mardi Gras morning. The partying throngs (who woke me two hours ago) must have crawled back into their holes until tomorrow. Happy Carnival to all! Perhaps, tomorrow when I'm watching the Rex parade and screaming for beads, an idea for the next Periplum topic will conk me on the head like a Zulu coconut. We shall see!

[chibi575]

Sorry, I've been out of laptop range attending the American Crafts Council in Baltimore, MD.  If I'm too late sorry but I pick left because it tracks well in the Japanese to me:

My pick... left

とりやげ婆が右の手也の紅葉哉
toriyagebaba ga migi no te nari no momiji kana

it's become a midwife's
red right hand...
maple leaf

My paraverse:

Not sure about "toriyagebaba"... parts put together seem to be involving an old woman (baba) possibly a mid-wife, but, I guess I like the translation though it's difficult.



the old woman's
right hand turns red!
autumn colors

It makes sense to have the "baba" performing as mid-wife, but, I just don't know.

[Gabi Greve]

Hi Chibi san, I just posted this on another thread

toriyage baba :
this is either a mis-spelling or an old version of toriage baba 取り上げ婆   ... tori ageru -  taking out and lifting up .. what a midwife does with a newborn baby. baba here could refere to any woman of this profession, does not have to be an old one. But in the Edo period, most elderly woman tended to the younger ones, because they had more experience.

Gabi

You might be interested in reading further here
http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/forum_sm/sails/sailing-14-what-kind-of-sword-do-you-carry/

.

[David Lanoue]

Thanks for your thoughts, Chibi, and I thank you for the correction, Gabi. I copied the romaji from Ueda's book. Perhaps he had a typo: "toriyage" for "tori-age." He didn't supply the Japanese text, so I based this on the romaji.

So, to set the record straight, here's what I think the original haiku must have looked like:

とりあげ婆が右の手也の紅葉哉
toriagebaba ga migi no te nari no momiji kana

it's become a  midwife's
red right hand . . .
maple leaf

Sanboku