“Iroha”—Japanese poem, Heian period (late 8th through Late 12th Centuries)
I’m continuing my experiments with recapturing emotional and tonal effects in translation (see here and here) with this rendering of the Iroha poem, a Heian-era Japanese pangram (piece of writing containing every item in a writing system—in this case, every kana then in use in Japanese). This is actually not my preferred approach to translation at all—that hews a little bit closer to word-for-word rather than thought-for-thought or feeling-for-feeling—but it is one that interests me very much, especially when it comes to source material with which I am very familiar.
I’m continuing my experiments with recapturing emotional and tonal effects in translation (see here and here) with this rendering of the Iroha poem, a Heian-era Japanese pangram (piece of writing containing every item in a writing system—in this case, every kana then in use in Japanese). This is actually not my preferred approach to translation—that hews a little bit closer to word-for-word rather than thought-for-thought or feeling-for-feeling—but it is one that interests me very much, especially when it comes to source material with which I am very familiar.
Since composing an English pangram that adequately translates any particular piece of foreign-language writing is probably impossible, I have gone with another venerable bit of formal wordplay, the acrostic. Acrostics, as well as their somewhat more freewheeling cousin alliteration, have been part of the English poetic tradition since the salad days of Cynewulf and Caedmon; they are currently not usually taken very seriously, but then, neither are pangrams. Cynewulf and Caedmon were religious poets; the Iroha is a religious poem; religion generally is not taken as seriously as it used to be in much of the world; these things happen.
A literal translation appears below my acrostic translation.
Iroha
Although the fragrant colors flourish
Loveliest flowers fade.
People, too, are of this world;
How could we endure?
Across the deep karmic mountains
Boldly we set out today,
Empty of deluded dreams—
Teetotalers we.
Colored flowers are fragrant, but will eventually scatter. Who in our world will exist forever? Karma’s deep mountains—we cross them today, and we shall not have frivolous dreams, nor become intoxicated.
いろはにほへと
ちりぬるを
わかよたれそ
つねならむ
うゐのおくやま
けふこえて
あさきゆめみし
ゑひもせす
“Hakata Lullaby”—Japanese popular song, Late 19th or Early 20th Century
“Hakata Komori Uta” (“Hakata Lullaby”) is a comic folk song (with a dark twist at the end) written by an anonymous nursemaid (komori), probably a teenage girl, in late nineteenth- or early twentieth-century Japan. These nursemaids did not necessarily work in the grand households that might have had domestic servants in the West; often they worked for other working-class people, whose luck had simply not been as hard as their own.
“Hakata Lullaby” (博多子守歌 Hakata komoriuta) is a comic folk song (with a dark twist at the end) written by an anonymous nursemaid (子守 komori), probably a teenage girl, in late nineteenth- or early twentieth-century Japan. These nursemaids did not necessarily work in the grand households that might have had domestic servants in the West; often they worked for other working-class people, whose luck had simply not been as hard as their own. However, the master and mistress of this particular song might have had upper-class pretensions, since the mistress is described as 渋う shibuu, which has a double meaning of “astringent, bitter” and “austere, understated, tasteful”; I have translated it “elegant, but dour.”
The first stanza contains a lurking allusion to the sex trade by way of the word “willow” (柳 yanagi). An alternate reading of the character for “willow” was (and still is) used to describe geisha, who do not sell sex as an integral part of their profession but in many cases do so on the side. The reference to the “willow” that is the nursemaid’s own body in particular draws attention to the fact that, for many former nursemaids, the sex trade was their only viable future option. “Yanagimachi,” the “willow district” of the city of Hakata (now a neighborhood of Fukuoka in southwestern Japan), was known as a red light district in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
I’m indebted to Franklin Odo’s magnificent book Voices from the Canefield: Folksongs from Japanese Immigrant Workers in Hawai’i for alerting me to this song’s arresting, disturbing final stanza, which led to my decision to translate the whole song.
The decision to use the singsongy 7.6.7.6. meter in English (technically, ballad meter with hypometric tetrameters for the longer lines and an XAXA rhyme scheme) was taken because the poetic form in Japanese is nominally intended to be sung to children (although I can’t imagine any child in their right mind enjoying this particular lullaby). A literal translation of the Japanese text that I am using, which I ran across in certain old books and musical recordings, appears below the metrical translation.
Hakata Lullaby
In Hakata’s “Willow District”
No trees have lately swayed.
The willow-withy there is
The figure of a maid.
The Mistress of this household
Is bad-persimmon-sour:
A lovely treat to look at,
Elegant, but dour.
The Master of this household
Is of a high estate;
And as to what is meant here—
As a drinker, he’s first-rate.
O Mistress, listen closely.
And Master, listen, you.
If you abuse the nursemaid
Then baby gets it too.
In Yanagimachi, Hakata, there are no willows. A girl’s figure is the body of the willow.
The mistress of the house is like a bad persimmon. She’s lovely to look at, but austere to the point of bitterness.
The master of the house is of a high station in life. What kind of station is this? A grade of sake.
Listen well, Mistress; you listen too, Master. If you do evil to the nursemaid, she’ll take it out on the child.
博多柳町 柳はないが
むすめ姿が 柳腰
うちの御 寮さんな がらがら柿よ
見かきゃよけれど 渋うござる
うちのお父つあんな 位がござる
なーんの位か 酒くらい
御寮よく聞け 旦那も聞けよ
守りに悪すりゃ 子にあたる