"The water I cupped / in my hands, drenching my sleeves, / has long been frozen"

[larryhammer]

An index post to drafts of my translations of classical Japanese poetry. (Chinese is over here.) Due to system constraints, larger books were split into two posts labeled a and b. Note that these are drafts, many of them since revised.

From the Kokinshu anthology, by book:
Book Ia: Spring 1 (1-48)
Book Ib: Spring 1 (49-68)
Book IIa: Spring 2 (69-100)
Book IIb: Spring 2 (101-134)
Book III: Summer (135-168)
Book IVa: Autumn 1 (169-200)
Book IVb: Autumn 1 (201-248)
Book Va: Autumn 2 (249-280)
Book Vb: Autumn 2 (281-313)
Book VI: Winter (313-342)
Book VII: Congratulations (343-364)
Book VIII: Partings (365-405)
Book IX: Travel (406-421)
Book X: Names of Things (422-468)
Book XI: Love 1 (469-480) [incomplete]

The latest revisions of the first six books were published as Ice Melts in the Wind.

Other:
Parts one and two of early drafts of Hyakunin Isshu, later published as One Hundred People, One Poem Each.
Ono no Komachi's complete poetry in the Kokinshu and Gosenshu, later published as These Things Called Dreams
Some random poems by Ki no Tsurayuki
An arc of Tanabata poems extracted from Kokinshu book IVa
A baker's dozen from the Shinkokinshu
A series of posts discussing three translations in detail

---L.

Comments

[leanne-opaskar.livejournal.com]

Hi there! I got linked to you through a Japanese SCA board. Looking forward to reading more of your translations. (:

[larryhammer]

I'm a-working on 'em. (You can track my progress, roughly one every two days, by rough drafts posted here, or just wait here -- there may be other entertainment available.)

Out of curiosity, what board was this on?

---L.

[leanne-opaskar.livejournal.com]

Tousando! *The* Japanese SCA board. (; Are you familiar with the SCA? It's a medieval re-enactment society. The Japanese re-enactors also have a Yahoo group, but it's not as active as Tousando. http://tousando.proboards.com/

[larryhammer]

Am familiar with SCA, yes (my wife was active in college, I've friends who still are) but not the Japanese, er, division? battalion? contingent?

---L.

[leanne-opaskar.livejournal.com]

Good question. Not sure what the right word is. There aren't a lot of Japanese re-enactors, and we're all sort of scattered hither and yon. (:

Which poem starts with ...

[(Anonymous)]

Hello,

I have found your blog more than interesting, thanks!!

Would you be able to tell me which of the poems starts with 五月雨の空もとどろに..., please?
Silly question, but I have read this poem is particularly famous...

I hope I haven't mispelled anything.


Thank you once again.

Kind regards,

Philippe
(Switzerland)

Re: Which poem starts with ...

[larryhammer]

Glad you liked it, Philippe.

That poem is #160. I confess I don't think of it as one of Tsurayuki's more famous poems, or his best -- but I'm not in any way an expert on the reception of Japanese poetry even in English, let alone other languages.

---L.

Re: Which poem starts with ...

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks Larry.
I agree with you about the quality of the poem in regard to some others.

This cuckoo-things is quite weird. I wonder how present these birds were back then for them to be omnipresent in poetry.

Cheers,

Phil

Re: Which poem starts with ...

[larryhammer]

By all reports, they're pretty omnipresent today, outside the larger cities, during their month of courtship singing. Fortunately, the haiku poets have, over the centuries, broadened the scope of summer topics.

---L.