I found this hanging up on a wall in a Japanese cafe:
The summer grass -
'Tis all that's left
Of ancient warriors' dreams.
Inazo Nitobe
No mention of Basho as the author of the original Japanese poem on the poster, or that this is a translation.
When I Googled, I found that Inazo Nitobe, the famous Bushido author, did translate this, and the poster simply leaves off Basho's name as the original author.
Cache:
Daily Yomiuri, Early summer rain falls, temple of light shine
Japanese Reference Site:
Summer Grasses & Samurai Glossary
I visited the area where Basho wrote about in his Summer Grasses haiku, but alas there was no marker to the famous haiku & battle.
Summer grasses,
All that remains
Of soldiers’ dreams
ON LOVE AND BARLEY, HAIKU OF BASHO Matsuo Basho - Author, Lucien Stryk - Translator
The romanised version (romaji):
Natsukusa ya
Tsuwamonodomo ga
Yume no ato
Another Summer grasses haiku, and powerful in its context of the dawning of the industrial age in Japan is:
summer grasses—
the wheels of the locomotive
come to a stop
YAMAGUCHI Seishi (1901 - 1994)
translated by Takashi Kodaira and Alfred H. Marks
The Essence of Modern Haiku - haiku by Yamaguchi Seishi
A Sample Page of The Essence of Modern Haiku including notes plus Japanese characters and romaji
No comments:
Post a Comment