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larryhammerTime for a crankypants post, Other Translators Edition. Because it's been a while since I did one.
Item: Kokinshu #159. This is an anonymous poem from late in book III, which deals with summer, coming after twenty-odd poems about anticipating and then listening to the hototogisu, or lesser cuckoo -- an Asian relation of the European cuckoo with a somewhat more liquid and varied, but just as repetitive, song. First the original text:
Note this has the usual pronoun issue: whether the cuckoo being talked to or talked about. The demonstrative pronoun sore, "that," doesn't really help, as it can refer either to something notionally in the direction of the listener rather than speaker ("that thing over by you") or to some third, agreed-upon thing in the same notional space as speaker and listener ("that thing over here" as opposed to "that thing over yonder, beyond us both"). I'm inclined to treat it as the latter and thus the cuckoo as talked about, because of the emotions involved, but either seems a valid understanding.
So putting all that together into a bald prose summary, in Translationese instead of English:
Wrong. And here I get cranky -- because, dear readers, this is NOT a wistful poem. The singing was not just "prodigal", and not just "known" -- it wore the speaker out. McCullough's "might"s, with their questioning welcome, are just as bad as the unjustifiable "lonely." At least she keeps the negative of "is not" -- though smoothing out the slight stumble that Rodd & Henkenius manage even while jettisoning the negative. Both misrepresent the original, because this is, in fact, a complaint -- an "oh dear gods spare me it's back" poem.
Yes, the Kokinshu was the canon definition of all that is refined and elegant in poetry for the early Heian era, but as anyone who has read Sei Shonagon knows, elegant and cranky are not remotely exclusive.**
So what's up here? One thing I notice is that both translations treat nakifurusu as an intransitive verb -- the singing extended through the summer, was prodigal -- apparently missing (or ignoring) that it's transitive, getting old for someone else. And without that, it is indeed possible to not read it as a complaint.
It's the little things that get you. Certainly, they get me all the time. (And I know of at least three readers of this journal who know far more about this stuff than I do, and won't hesitate to explain All I've Gotten Wrong here myself -- as well they should.)
Anyway, to put up rather than shut up, here's my version:
I think I need a tag for "field-stripping poetry for fun and profit."
* There is a long tradition of mistranslating hototogisu as "nightingale" because of similar cultural associations. This can be ignored.
** See subject line, from her list of "Hateful Things." Mansplaining: nothing new.
---L.
Item: Kokinshu #159. This is an anonymous poem from late in book III, which deals with summer, coming after twenty-odd poems about anticipating and then listening to the hototogisu, or lesser cuckoo -- an Asian relation of the European cuckoo with a somewhat more liquid and varied, but just as repetitive, song. First the original text:
こぞの夏なきふるしてし郭公それかあらぬかこゑのかはらぬThen the usual only-somewhat-helpful word-for-word breakdown:
kozo no natsu
naki-furushiteshi
hototogisu
sore ka aranu ka
koe no kawaranu
last year | <-of | summerTwo complicating things: first, nakifurusu is a compound verb, where naki is the stem form of naku, to sing, and furusu is a transitive verb meaning to wear out/make accustomed to, related to the intransitive verb furu, to get old. In other words, to wear someone else out with singing -- "cuckoo whose singing got really old." Second, while in breakdown the forth line might look like an equal offering of two alternatives ("is that or isn't it?"), the way the question markers are "bound" to the relevant verbs makes the fourth line a single question which is then questioned by the last line. The effect is a slightly off-kilter hesitance.
sing wear out perfective personal past experience (attributive form, modifying cuckoo)
cuckoo ( implied topic marker)
that | ? | is not (attributive form, bound with ?) | ?
voice | <-subject (of be different) | be different not (attributive form, bound with second ?)
Note this has the usual pronoun issue: whether the cuckoo being talked to or talked about. The demonstrative pronoun sore, "that," doesn't really help, as it can refer either to something notionally in the direction of the listener rather than speaker ("that thing over by you") or to some third, agreed-upon thing in the same notional space as speaker and listener ("that thing over here" as opposed to "that thing over yonder, beyond us both"). I'm inclined to treat it as the latter and thus the cuckoo as talked about, because of the emotions involved, but either seems a valid understanding.
So putting all that together into a bald prose summary, in Translationese instead of English:
The cuckoo who wore me/us out with singing the summer of last year -- isn't that (him)? (Because) (that) voice is not different.The only other English versions of the poem I can find are from the two most recent complete Kokinshu translations published in the States. (While there are other translations of book III, they are either OP or hard to find, and this is a minor poem of the sort that gets left out of Good Parts selections.) They are:
is this the same one
the same mountain nightingale*
who sang to us so
prodigally last summer--
the lonely voice has not changed
—Rodd & Henkenius
Might you be the one,
Cuckoo, whose singing I knew
All through last summer --
Or might you be another?
You voice at least sounds the same.
—McCullough
Both are elegantly wistful, right?Wrong. And here I get cranky -- because, dear readers, this is NOT a wistful poem. The singing was not just "prodigal", and not just "known" -- it wore the speaker out. McCullough's "might"s, with their questioning welcome, are just as bad as the unjustifiable "lonely." At least she keeps the negative of "is not" -- though smoothing out the slight stumble that Rodd & Henkenius manage even while jettisoning the negative. Both misrepresent the original, because this is, in fact, a complaint -- an "oh dear gods spare me it's back" poem.
Yes, the Kokinshu was the canon definition of all that is refined and elegant in poetry for the early Heian era, but as anyone who has read Sei Shonagon knows, elegant and cranky are not remotely exclusive.**
So what's up here? One thing I notice is that both translations treat nakifurusu as an intransitive verb -- the singing extended through the summer, was prodigal -- apparently missing (or ignoring) that it's transitive, getting old for someone else. And without that, it is indeed possible to not read it as a complaint.
It's the little things that get you. Certainly, they get me all the time. (And I know of at least three readers of this journal who know far more about this stuff than I do, and won't hesitate to explain All I've Gotten Wrong here myself -- as well they should.)
Anyway, to put up rather than shut up, here's my version:
The cuckoo that madeWhich I think manages the balance between cranky and elegant. The complaint leads to my treating sore as indicating an emotional distance, and to achieve the hesitance of the two question marks, I turned the fourth line into two questions but off-kiltered them by keeping them syntactically unparallel. I'd go for "sick of his singing" for the sound, but the tone isn't quite elegant enough, and "weary of his singing" is not quite tired out enough. But they are defensible alternatives -- unlike the two translations above.
me tired of his singing
all summer last year --
was that him? -- or isn't it?
Because that voice is the same.
I think I need a tag for "field-stripping poetry for fun and profit."
* There is a long tradition of mistranslating hototogisu as "nightingale" because of similar cultural associations. This can be ignored.
** See subject line, from her list of "Hateful Things." Mansplaining: nothing new.
---L.