A working space for my notes on Ogura Hyakunin Isshu - a classical Japanese anthology of 100 poems by 100 poets. My thanks to Jane Reichhold and fellow members of the AHApoetry Forum for their encouragement, advice and participation; and also to my fellow fellow members of Eratosphere for their comments and suggestions.

Tuesday 3 July 2012

#019 難波潟

難波潟
みじかき芦の
ふしのまも
あはでこの世を
過ぐしてよとや

Naniwa gata mijikaki ashi no fushi no ma mo awade kono yo o sugushite yo to ya

Lady Ise


at Nawina Bay
a segment of this bullrush
is about as short
as the time we've spent alone,
and there is no more! n'est ce pas?

(trans. Köy Deli)
Naniwa marsh
short as segments on reeds
our brief passage
without meeting in this life
is that what you want? 

(trans. Jane Reichhold)



Parsing 

Naniwagata

Naniwa | -lagoon
mijikaki ashi no
short | reed | of
fushi no ma mo
nodes | space/time | even (as little as . . .)
awade kono yo o
without meeting | this | life | !
sugushite yo to ya
pass through | want | ! | quotative particle | ?

Crib

Are you saying you do not want us to meet anymore as we pass through this life? not even for as brief a space/time as a segment of reed from Naniwa Bay!

Devices

Kaketoba -- 'ma' is used here as a pivot refering to the short space/segment of bamboo reed and brief amount of time.

Naniwa
難波
Place name

-gata
lagoon, marsh

Naniwagata
難波潟
Naniwa Bay

mijikaki
みじかき
short, brief (space/time)

ashi
 
reed; bullrush

no
 
genitive

fushi
ふし
knot (in wood); node (of a bamboo shoot)

ma
space; room; time; pause
kaketoba
mo
emotive particle; even (as little as... as much as)

awade
あはで
without meeting, a tryst, a date,  rendezvous,
neg. form of ‘au’
kono
この
this

yo
 
world, generation, age, society

o
 
case particle, direct object

sugushite
過ぐ
pass through

-shite
して


yo
! exclamatory particle

to
“...” quotative particle

ya
? interrogative particle

yo to ya
よとや
that’s what you’re saying! is it not? n’est ce pas? ne le dira-t-on pas? Is that it?

No comments:

Post a Comment