HAIKU
1. Form
2. Methodology and
Translation Techniques
3. Terminology
1. Form
A
haiku consists of 17 onji (or morae) divided into lines of 5, 7 and 5 onji, and so it appears, at first sight,
to be more symmetrical than the form from which it evolved, the tanka or waka (5, 7, 5, 7, 7 syllables). We may think of the Chinese character
for mountain (Chinese reading SEN;
Japanese reading yama), in which the
central peak is slightly higher than the side ones. Yet this symmetry is deceptive, for
these three divisions actually form two units, a phrase of 12 onji and a fragment of 5 onji. The effect of the haiku largely
depends upon the juxtaposition of the two images presented in these two units.
An
onji is a unit of sound; it may also
be called a haku (in English, mora, a
term from Latin prosody). It is not
quite the same as an English syllable: for example, ‘haiku’ is two syllables in
English, but in Japanese, a language without diphthongs, ‘ha-i-ku’ is three onji. Consequently 17 onji are roughly equivalent, in length and effect, to 11 or 12
syllables. Much poetry in English,
German, French, Italian and Spanish is based on a 10/11 syllable line, which
tests have revealed to represent the length of a moment. Japanese poetry, however, traditionally
employed 5- and 7-onji lines in varying degrees of alternation, the 5-7-5-7-7
of the tanka being most popular. By putting three of these lines
together, the haiku forms a moment to Western ears – a slightly elongated
moment, with two breaks, one major and one minor.
This
division of a poem into three units is extremely rare; the majority of world
poetry is binary and parallel in construction. The ternary structure is almost unique
to Japanese. Most present
translators reproduce it; very occasionally, a Japanese translator has rendered
haiku, or tanka, into four-line English verse. A substantial body of such verse already
exists in English, and it is of a considerably higher standard than anything
that Mr. Yuasa (The
There
is the danger that Westerners, in their attempt to come to terms with and
appropriate the haiku, will restrict its range and make it less flexible than
the haiku in Japanese. For example,
we sometimes exaggerate the Buddhist tendencies of a haijin, paying insufficient regard to the importance of the Shinto
belief in the oneness of nature and possible conflicts between this belief and
Buddhist transcendence; we may advocate the absence of personal pronouns and,
as far as possible, of verbs, even though several Japanese haijin employ them quite merrily; or we may turn a blind eye to the
humour of haiku. In translation, I
attempt to follow the author in such matters. This exaggeration is perfectly
understandable, for we wish to separate the values of haiku from those of
Western poetry, and this is easier to achieve when the genre is tightly
defined. In the past, too many
restrictions were placed, haiku sometimes being considered synonymous with
Bashō, or perhaps also with Buson, the work of many other notable haijin, such
as Issa, Tan Taigi, and Chiyo-ni, being neglected. Nowadays we have gone to the other
extreme; relativity has created a world without borders and without defining
features. Poetry, like life, needs
restrictions.
2. Methodology and Translation
Techniques
My
translations generally employ 11-12 syllables, this length being approximately
correspondent to 17 onji. Some poets like to follow the Japanese
syllabic pattern when composing haiku in English, but translators seldom adopt
that method (Kenneth Yasuda being an exception), Japanese being a more polysyllabic
and inflectional language. At no
stage did I feel that I was forced to omit anything essential; on the contrary,
adopting 11-12 syllables as a rough limit assisted my attempt to reproduce the
economy of the originals and acted as a guard against interpretative adjectives
and pathetic fallacies. The essence
of haiku lies in suggestion, in an unstated
emotional response to (seasonal) nature.
My
translation is my own work; the strengths and demerits of each version are mine alone. Some
people like to co-translate, or to consult the original poet, and on occasion
such collaborations may be of benefit, especially if the translator is not
versed in the source language (there seem to be many co-translations from
Hungarian, for instance). However,
I find such a procedure to lead to conflict; there can be only one driver, and
a poet is but a passenger in foreign lands. A translator views a poem from a
perspective that is closed to the author, who does not possess as deep a knowledge of, and feel for, the target language. As concerns notions of ‘originality’, I
shall merely observe the following: when Bashō composes a haiku that is the
same as one by Sōgi but for one word (yo ni furu mo/ sara ni sōgi no/ yadori
kana; yo ni furu mo/ sara ni shigure no/ yadori kana), his poem is considered
an original work, for that one word, that one small change, alters the whole. The new poem thereby establishes roots,
and strengthens the roots of its predecessor, in the native tradition. Translators constantly make such
changes; this is unavoidable when one is transferring data from one language
into another, for there are no perfect inter-lingual synonyms. Is their work not therefore original?
Translation
may be defined as a search in the snow for what we did not plant; of course, as
with many comments on translation, the image is applicable to almost any use of
language, and we must bear in mind that the planter was working on prepared
ground. When encountering a language
as different from one’s mother tongue as Japanese is from English, the snow is
deep. Haiku is essentially nature
poetry, and the English are less alive to the seasons than the Japanese. We approach it as children, but then we
‘grow up’ and lose ourselves in petty emotional concerns; haiku return our
attention to the small details of nature that we have failed to notice since
our first, incomplete discovery of the natural world. The Japanese possess a vocabulary –
including a more specific calendar, with shoshū (early autumn) and banshun
(late spring) – that exceeds our word-store, so the translation of such words
cannot bear the same force in English.
It is fascinating to observe the way in which they monitor the advance
of the cherry-blossom front in spring: after all, what is more important than
flowers? Our sense of season is
being further weakened by climactic change and our gradual flattening of the
festivals of the year: when I was a child, a firework display took place on one
night only; nowadays, they occur with inescapable regularity, and the
fascination and poetry of ‘flower-fire’, as the Japanese call it, disappears. There is also the significant structural
difference of the two languages.
When writing essays in academic English, Japanese students often use the
passive voice incorrectly and excessively, for it occurs more frequently in
their language. I am not advocating
the avoidance of the passive voice to be found in Microsoft Word and some
academic journals; I am simply concerned with its correct employment. If we consider the following haiku by
Chiyo-ni, in which the blossoming of the plum-flower heralds the arrival of
spring:
ume ga ka ya plum-blossom
scent (kireji)
doko e fukaruru where
to [in what direction] is blown
yuki onna snow
woman
How
are we to translate the final two lines?
We could anticipate:
where has she been
blown, / the snow woman?
We
could make the passive active:
where has the wind blown / the snow woman?
Or,
in this instance, we may retain the passive through the use of enjambement:
whither has the snow / woman been blown?
English/American
translators of Japanese poetry often claim to have retained the order of the
images in the original poem as far as was possible, and their practice often
belies their theory. I shall make
the same claim and leave the reader to test its veracity. There are limits: for example, in Issa’s:
yama-yake no mountain-fire’s
akari ni kudaru light
in going down
yobune kana night-boat
[kireji]
we note how the object
precedes the verb, an arrangement that cannot be reproduced in English. Furthermore, Japanese has particles and
postpositions, English has prepositions:
sabishisa ni from
loneliness (Sekitei)
I
generally avoided pronouns, especially the subject pronoun, in order to create
ambiguity, a sense of selflessness, of being one with nature:
meigetsu ya harvest
moon –
ike wo megurite milling
round the pond
yomosugara throughout
the night (Bashō)
In
general, haijin employ a concrete and neutral vocabulary. The poem is noun-heavy, often
constructed around the particle ‘no’, a small but significant bridge between
two or more nouns, two or more states, and the bearer of the process of mutual
enriching modification; in that respect, haiku evoke the German language more
than English. Constructions such as
‘no oto’ (‘the sound of…’) and ‘no koe’ (‘the voice of’) are frequently found. It is difficult to maintain this
neutrality in translation, for one phrase can change considerably in a new
context. Let us consider two hokku
by Bashō in which ‘semi no koe’ (‘cicada voice’) appears:
shizukasa ya silence
–
iwa ni shimi-iru into
the rock
semi no koe cicada
drill
yagate shinu no
sign
keshiki wa miezu of
dying soon –
semi no koe cicada
chirp
In
such cases, translators are often unsure whether to use the singular or to
pluralise. There is also the
question of how to translate ‘koe’.
Neutral terms in Japanese can make a significant phonetic contribution
to the poem; this is not the case in the above poems with ‘sound’ or
‘voice’. The translator usually
wishes to employ a more specific term that is suggested by the context and
which will enrich his version. Thus
the term that designates the sound of cicadas in English – ‘chirp’ – is
employed for the second hokku, with its cheerful connotations, to add poignancy
to a hokku on the premature death of Bashō’s patron. The same term would be inappropriate for
the preceding hokku, in which the noise made by the cicadas gradually eats into
the rock.
Finally,
I retained the occasional Japanese word. With ‘sakura’ (cherry-blossom),
‘sazanka’ (camellia sasanqua) and, ‘susuki’ (pampas-grass), the sibilants and
the velar stops were simply irresistible.
Of course, we must accept that Japanese has more Ks than English, and it
is often impossible to reproduce that sound effect, unless we fill our page
with blossoming sakura and singing skylarks! Yet it is difficult not to covet the
sounds of other tongues; the temptation is always there to essay to reproduce
the sounds that carry the poem to our ears, to rewrap the present in the same
paper, rather than to create a parallel system of sounds. The attempt was made to utilise
assonance and alliteration wherever possible, although the fact remains that a
language with only single consonants and very few vowel-sounds, and in which
virtually every mora ends with a vowel (the exception, ‘n’, used to be ‘mu’),
is being translated into a language rich in vowel-sounds whose words are often
thickly wooded with consonants.
That vocalic variation commonly forms the sinews of the English poetic
line; in the haiku’s three-tatami mat room, however, the repetition of
vowel-sounds forms an enchanting, almost ritualistic, rhythm.
Ultimately,
our reaction to a translation depends on the extent of our knowledge of the
source language. If the English is
all that we have access to, then a good translation may arouse the wish to
imitate; if we can see, and understand, the Japanese, then we may experience
the desire to translate. A
translation can only be similar to its original; sameness is an impossible
dream. Yet we cannot help pursuing
this dream, for we want our language to convey the same meaning, and we wish to
capture and come to terms with the poem in our mother tongue; there is
something both stimulating and unnerving in being moved by words in a foreign
language. It expands the limits of
our individuality while simultaneously calling into question the nature of the
self. So we note the difference
between original and translation, and we search the banks of language for the
narrowest of crossings; in the end, we build our own bridge.
3. Terminology
Aware: a
melancholic response to the sadness of transitory beauty; elegant pathos; a
gentle appreciation tinged with sorrow; lacrimae
rerum, the pity of things. See
the excerpt from William J. Puett, Guide
to the Tale of Genji (Rutland, Vermont; Tokyo: Tuttle, 1983) at:
www.uwec.edu/beachea/teach/japanese religion/puette2.htm.
Haibun: terse prose
containing haiku, the most famous example being Bashō’s ‘Oku no hosomichi’
(‘The Narrow Road to the Interior’, the Interior/Depths being Tohoku).
Haiga: an abstract
painting that accompanies a haiku, or is accompanied by a haiku in calligraphy.
Haiku: A
minimalist beginning; a guest’s greeting.
The meeting of the eternal and the momentary; the sound of snow beneath
the stones; the wind seen by candlelight; the fire inferred from a glimpse of
smoke.
Hiragana: one of the
two Japanese phonetic syllabaries – the elegant one.
Hosomi:
‘slenderness’. Sparse,
understated expression.
Ji-amari:
(‘character-excess’), the use of extra onji
in a haiku.
Jisei no ku: a death-bed
poem.
Kake-kotoba: a
‘pivot-word’. More
common in tanka than in haiku.
It is an elaborate pun and may be thought of as a hinge for two
doors. The pivot-word is written in
hiragana; if the poet were to use kanji, the ambiguity would
disappear. For example: in his
tanka ‘yamakage no’, Ryōkan writes ‘sumiwataru’ in hiragana, so the reader sees
only the sounds; it is kanji that carry the basic meaning. Ryōkan is punning on ‘sumi’ which means
both ‘live’ and ‘clean/pure’: he leads a pure life. These two meanings of ‘sumi’ are
distinguished through separate kanji.
Kanjaku: supreme
quietness.
Kanji: Chinese
characters in Japanese.
Karumi:
‘lightness’. The
simple treatment of the beauty to be found in the ordinary; common poetry, not
that of the court.
Katakana: the
unattractive, over-used Japanese phonetic syllabary that squashes round foreign
sounds into squares.
Kigo: a ‘season word’. This may be explicit – ‘spring night’,
‘autumn evening’, ‘winter’ – or it may take the form of
a creature or natural phenomenon associated with a particular season. Thus ‘harvest moon’ suggests autumn, as
does ‘lightning’; ‘thunder’ implies summer; and ‘sazanka’ are associated with
winter. A small selection is given
here; for more thorough lists, and for information of the historical usage of
kigo, the reader is referred to a saijiki
and William J. Higginson’s The Haiku
Seasons: Poetry of the Natural World respectively.
New Year: hanetsuki (battledore and shuttlecock ~
badminton), hatsumōde (New Year visit to a shrine), hatsuyume (first dream of
the year), kadomatsu (a pine-tree at the gate, as a New Year decoration),
kagami-mochi (‘mirror rice-cakes’, offered to the Gods on New Year’s Day),
otoshidama (handsel).
Spring: abu (horsefly), aomushi (caterpillar),
atatakasa (warmth), awayuki (light [‘bubble’] snow), chatsumi
(tea[leaf]-picking), chō (butterfly), hamaguri (clam), hanami (cherry-blossom
viewing), hibari (skylark), kaeru (frog), kasumi (mist), kiji (pheasant), kochi
(spring wind), komadori (robin), makuren (magnolia), masu (trout), mugi
(wheat), nadare (avalanche), neko no koi (cat’s love), nishin (herring), nodoka
na (tranquil), nori (laver), noyaki (burning dead grass), oborotsuki (hazy
moon), rakka (fallen cherry-blossoms), saezuri ([bird] twittering), shinkirō
(mirage), shiohigari (shellfish-gathering), sumire (violet), suzume (sparrow),
tagayasu (ploughing), tako (kite), tanemaki (sowing), tanpopo (dandelion),
tauchi (hoeing), tsubaki (camellia), tsubame (swallow), tsuki no kasa (halo of
the moon), tsutsuji (azalea), uguisu (bush warbler), umemi (plum-blossom
viewing), wasurenagusa (forget-me-not), yanagi (willow), yūgiri (evening mist),
zansetsu (lingering snow).
Summer: aosagi (heron), ari (ant), asagao
(morning-glory), ase (sweat), atsusa (heat), ayu (sweetfish), banka (late
summer), bara (rose), biwa (loquat), endō (pea), funsui (fountain), fūrin
(windchime), ga (moth), hanabi (fireworks), hanashōbu (iris), hasu no hana
(lotus-flower), hebi (snake), hideri (drought), higasa (parasol), hikigaeru
(toad), himawari (sunflower), hirune (afternoon nap), hoshigusa (hay), hotaru
(firefly), ichigo (strawberry), izumi (spring, fountain), ka (mosquito),
kaminari (thunder), kani (crab), katatsumuri (snail), keshi no hana (poppy),
kingyo (goldfish), koi no bori (carp-shaped streamer), kōmori (bat), kumo
(spider), kurage (jellyfish), kuroichigo (blackberry), kyūri (cucumber), melon,
mugi no aki (ripe wheat), mugikari (barley-cutting), mugiwarabōshi (straw hat),
nanbū (summer [southern] breeze), nasu (aubergine), niji (rainbow), ran
(orchid), samidare (early summer [5th-month] rain), semi (cicada),
sensus (folding fan), shoka (early summer), sōmatō (revolving lantern), sudare
(bamboo blind), suiren (water-lily), suzuran (lily of the valley), suzushisa
(coolness), take no ko (bamboo shoot), taki (waterfall), tamanegi (onion), taue
(rice-planting), tessenka (clematis), tomato, tōmorokoshi (corn), tōrōnagashi
(lantern floating), tsuyu (rainy season), wakaba (young leaves), yagurumasō
(cornflower), yūgao (moonflower), yukata, yuri no hana (lily), yūsuzumi
(enjoying the cool evening air).
Autumn: amanogawa (Milky Way; ‘River of Heaven’),
asasamu (morning coldness), budō (grape), donguri (acorn), gan (wild goose),
hōnen (good rice-crop), hoshizuki yo (starry night), ichijiku (fig), inazuma
(lightning), inekari (rice-reaping), kakashi (scarecrow), kaki (persimmon),
kamakiri (mantis), karasu (crow), kari (goose), karita (reaped field), kiku
(chrysanthemum), kinoko (mushroom), kinokogari (mushroom-gathering), kiri
(fog), kitsutsuki (woodpecker), konomi (nuts), kōrogi (cricket), kōzui (flood),
kuri (chestnut), kurumi (walnut), mangetsu (full moon), [chūshū no] meigetsu
(harvest-moon), mikan (mandarin), mizusumu (clear water), momiji
(maple[-leaves]), mozu (shrike), mukuge (rose of Sharon), nowake (autumn storm;
‘moor-divide’), ringo (apple), ryūsei (shooting star), shika (deer), shion
(aster), suika (watermelon), taifū (typhoon), tonbō (dragonfly), tsukimi
(moon-viewing), tsuru (crane), tsuyu (dew), wataridori (bird of passage),
yonaga (long night), yozamu (night-chill), zakuro (pomegranate), zansho
(lingering heat).
Winter: bōnenkai (end-of-year party), chidori
(plover), fukurō (owl), fuyugare (winter desolation), hakuchō (swan), hi’iragi
(holly), hisame (icy rain), itetaki (frozen waterfall), kaki (oyster), kamo
(duck), kareha (dead leaves), kareki (bare tree), kazahana (snowflake;
‘wind-flower’), keitoamu (knitting), kitakaze (North Wind), kitsune (fox),
kogarashi (cold winter wind), kōri (ice), kuma (bear), mizudori (waterfowl),
ochiba (fallen leaves), sazanka (camellia sasanqua), seki (cough), setsugen
(snow field), suisen (narcissus), taka (hawk), takibi (fire), tōji (winter
solstice), tsurara (icicle), usagi (rabbit), yuge (steam), yukidaruma
(snowman).
Kireji: a
‘cutting-word’. A
pause of thought. Often ‘ya’, and usually following the ‘kigo’. This word is emphatic, and is translated
as ‘–’, ‘!’, ‘…’ or ‘:’. There are
also the old-fashioned translations by an old-fashioned translator, William
Stewart: ‘lo!’, ‘behold!’ It serves
as a low wall between the initial scene and the following, juxtaposed image.
Other
kireji are: kana, a soft sigh
(‘Ah!’), frequently at the end of the haiku; keri, an emotive verbal suffix; ramu/ran
(the final ‘n’ being originally written ‘mu’), a verbal suffix meaning ‘It may
be that…’; and shi, an adjectival
suffix that requires a predicate adjective at the end of the clause in English.
Makoto: sincerity.
Makura-kotoba: a
‘pillow-word’. This is a decorative
epithet which, like all Japanese qualifiers, precedes the noun. It makes the reader rest his head on a
pillow, as it were, and reflect on the noun. Thus ‘kusa-makura’ (‘grass-pillow’) is a
pillow-word for ‘journey’ or ‘evening’.
Miyabi: courtly
elegance.
Renga:
(‘linked-elegance’). A long poem
formed of three- and two-line stanzas composed by several poets sitting
together. The first stanza, composed
by the senior poet, is called the ‘hokku’, and this is the term that describes
the poetry of Bashō: ‘haiku’ was coined by Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902). The second stanza is the ‘wakiku’
(‘side-verse’) and the third is the ‘daisan’; apart from this, only the final
stanza has a specific name (‘ageku’), all other stanzas coming under the
nomenclature of ‘hiraku’ (‘ordinary verse’). A renga is a series of imaginative,
almost scientific, leaps, a train journey on which the passenger frequently
alights at unfamiliar stations and wonders how on earth he arrived there; it is
one of the most lateral forms of poetry.
Sabi:
Asymmetrical, impermanent beauty; quiet elegance; acceptance of transience. A
‘positive sadness’ (Sanford Goldstein et
al, Ryōkan: Selected Tanka. Selected Haiku.
Saijiki: a kigo dictionary.
Senryū: ‘river
willow’. Named
after the nom de plume of Karai Hachiemon (1718-90). The same basic form as the haiku, but
the language is more colloquial, and the content and tone are different; the
senryū is more concerned with mankind, especially with human foibles, and it is
frequently epigrammatic, witty, satirical. It gives the reader a pointe, not a
moment; there is no kigo, no mysticism; it is a song not free from mud, although
this earthiness can be its strength.
Shasei: a
still-life (Shiki). The
presentation of an actual scene as it is (‘sono mama’), not the poet’s aroused
reflections, during the process of observation.
Shibumi: ‘astringency’. Subdued images; light,
faint strokes.
Shiori: ‘bending,
withering’. The
delicate, sensitive observation of the world; sympathy with ambiguity.
Tanka: ‘short
poem’. For many centuries the
dominant poetic form in Japanese, as is attested by its old name, waka (‘Japanese poem’). It originated from chants to the gods,
which explains its rhythmic variation: it comprises 31 onji in a 5-7-5-7-7 structure, alternation being followed by
terminal repetition.
Ushin: ‘with
heart’. Refers to
the employment of classical diction and a sincere, elevated tone (in renga).
Utsuri:
‘reflection’. Denotes
the sense of transference between renga stanzas. This transference can also be seen to be
compressed within the haiku.
Wabi: Beauty in
poverty, in austerity, in simple living and things. Non-dependence upon
material possessions; the satisfying appeal of solitude and loneliness.
Haiku
Translations with the Japanese Script
Haiku
Annotated Bibliography
Haiku Readings
Tanka
Introduction