How High is the Snow? :: Haiku of Japan #77
いくたびも雪の深さを尋ねけり
iku tabi mo yuki no fukasa wo tazunekeri
repeatedly I ask
how high
is the snow
—Shiki
(Tr. David LaSpina)
("Snow at Tsukijima" by Hasui Kawase)
This is one of four haiku Shiki wrote in 1896 as he laid on his back, unable to so much as turn his head without incredible pain from the tuberculosis as it attacked his spinal cord. I previously translated another of these four here. In this one we can feel his passion for the snow and yearning to see it as he begs his mother and sister to give more details for his mind's eye.
❦
| Don't miss other great haiku in the Haiku of Japan series! |
|---|
Recent Haiku
- 71 — Born Lucky
- 72 — Late New Year's
- 73 — New Year's Cleaning
- 74 — Dreams of Turtles
- 75 — An Early Spring
- 76 — Fan After Bath
Collections
- Collection 1 :: Haiku 1–10
- Collection 2 :: Haiku 11–20
- Collection 3 :: Haiku 21-30
- Collection 4 :: Haiku 31-40
- Collection 5 :: Haiku 41-50
- Collection 6 :: Haiku 51-60
- Collection 7 :: Haiku 61–70
| If you enjoyed this post, please like and resteem. Also be sure to follow me to see more from Japan everyday. |
|---|
I post one photo everyday, as well as a haiku and as time allows, videos, more Japanese history, and so on. Let me know if there is anything about Japan you would like to know more about or would like to see.
| Who is David? | |
|---|---|
 | David LaSpina is an American photographer lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time. |
Oh. Only people losing health can understand the preciousness of health. Such a kind of passion!
We never appreciate what we have till it's gone.
Gripping bit of biography there!
Fascinating how deep(fukasa) gets turned into high in your translation.
Your posting of the script and the phonemes enables me to sink into my own few feet of Japanese word snow! It makes for great training in listening to the rhythm of life around a single person (the poet). Very intimate stuff.
Things like that are where translation gets tricky. While we could say "how deep is the snow" in English, it would be far more natural to ask how high it is. Cases like this are when we have to abandon a literal translation and instead go with a cultural one.
I'm glad you are enjoying the original Japanese. I think most people don't care but I always post it for people like you who do care. As a haiku reader myself I know always want to see the original whenever I read a translation.
Beautiful Haiku @dbooster. Just what a Haiku should be, distilled meaning framed in poetry.
Glad you could enjoy it.
@dbooster, I'm glad I saw this one so that I could go back and look at the first one you posted. Somehow I missed the first one in this series. What a sad life, but yet he was still writing!
I know, his was a tragic life. He ended up dying from TB around age 30 and suffered from it most of his life, but instead of giving up he kept fighting till the end and was writing haiku the entire way.
It looks about as well as we now have in Russia. Thank you!
How cold it must be there right now!