My traveler's nose . . .

1 -- My traveler's nose . . . [#174]
2 -- When in Saga . . . [#185]
3 -- Some notes on W.S. Merwin's lousy translations
of Yosa Buson's haiku, with four more of my translations:
[#183][#376][#331][#719]
_ _ _

My traveler's nose
still has a cold, can't smell the
first cherry blossoms.


[白狐]

[Yosa Buson # 174, spring.]
tabi-bito no / hana mada samushi / hatsu-zakura.

"journey-person's // nose still cold // first--cherry-blossom(s)"
[Yosa Buson is traveling, so, most likely, it's his nose !!]

Merwin botched this up as well:
"The (??) traveller's nose / and (??) the first cherry blossoms /
one as cold as the other. (???)
_ _ _

When in Saga
the lit lights go out --
cherry blossom scent.

When the lit lights go out
in Saga I can better smell
the cherry blossoms.


[白狐]

[Yosa Buson # 185, spring.]
hana no ka ya / saga no tomoshi-bi / kiyuru toki.

"(cherry) blossom's scent and/-- // Saga's lit-light(s) // extinguishing time."

Merwin translated:
"In Saga the fragrance / of cherry blossoms / late at night."
>> kiyuru = kieru = extinguish, go out (of light), disappear.
Merwin left this adjectival verb untranslated !!
>> It is late at night, but that is only inferred !!
>> tomosu = to light (fire, lamp, candle)
_ _ _

Source: "Collected Haiku of Yosa Buson",
translated by W.S. Merwin & Takako Lento.
_ _ _

SOME NOTES OF CRITIQUE ON MERWIN'S TRANSLATIONS
OF YOSA BUSON'S HAIKU:

It is riddled with mistakes and on purpose (??) mistranslations: e.g.
[#183] touki-batake = field of angelica >> Merwin: field of meadowsweet.
nara michi ya / touki-batake no / hana hito-ki.
The road to Nara -- / in an angelica field / one cherry in bloom.

[#17] seri = Japanese parsley >> Merwin: watercress
but in [#44] and [#45] Merwin translated "water parsley", yet from the
context there is no reason to assume they're "water" parsley:
see my translations in "Among Parsley".

[#110] yomogi = wormwood >> Merwin: mugwort.

[#87-90] ta-nishi = "paddy-snail", mud snail (a spring haiku subject),
but Merwin translated respectively:
shellfish, shellfish, mud snails and periwinkle.
See my translations: "Paddy Snails".

[#376] furi kaete / hie wo hatachi no / kehai ka na.
Changing by snowfall / Mount Hiei, it looks like / a twenty-year-old . . .
"by-(snow)-falling changing // Hiei (acc.) of-20-years-old //
indication I-wonder-?!"
Hie = Mount Hiei (north of Kyôto)
>> Merwin: Mount Fuji (south-west of Tôkyô). With a story about the
miraculous recovery of Kabuki actor Keishi who was specialized in
female roles. Buson had made a painting of Mount Fuji (???) with a note
"Keishi fell seriously ill in Ise (!!!) . . ." Ise is east of Nara and south-east
of Kyôto and far away from Tôkyô and Mount Fuji !!

[#331] nyoubou = one's wife >> Merwin: neighbour's wife.
kawatori ya / mukai no nyoubou / kochi o miru.
Bats -- / my wife across the street / looks this way.
[kochi(ra) = this way, in my direction.]
Merwin translated:
Bats are out / a neighbour's wife / glances at me across the alley.

Many times Merwin left the negation untranslated:
e.g. [#719] fuyu no ume / kinou ya chiri-nu / ishi no ue.
No winter plum blossoms / have fallen yesterday / onto the stones.
[chiru + nu = fall, scatter + not.] Merwin translated:
Winter plum blossoms / must have fallen yesterday /
there they are on the stones.

And on top of that the criminal cover-up of the true meaning of [#730]

>> see my translation in "I wonder what they'll be doing".

Only of a few haiku I can say that they were translated satisfactorily.
The rest is junk. And the fact that the kanji/hiragana hasn't
been added makes it sometimes hard for me to verify the meaning
of a Japanese word written in rômaji.

The "note from the translators" is signed by Lento in Januari 2013.
It must be a pseudonym, because if he is Japanese, his Japanese
must be lousy, or it is a real name, which is strange because there is
no "l"-sound in Japanese, and that may mean he hasn't read the
translations by Merwin at all !!

[白狐, April 29, 2014.]