English Original
There's no gap or break
In the rank of those marching
Under the hill:
An endless line of dying men,
Moving on and on and on ...
Mirror for the Moon, 1971 (translated with an Intro by William R. Lafleur)
Saigyo
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
在山下一排排士兵
行軍的隊伍中
沒有任何間隙或中斷:
垂死者的隊伍看似永無止境,
繼續前進, 繼續前進 ...
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
在山下一排排士兵
行军的队伍中
没有任何间隙或中断:
垂死者的队伍看似永无止境,
继续前进, 继续前进 ...
Bio Sketch
Saigyō (born 1118, Japan—died March 23, 1190, Ōsaka) was a Japanese Buddhist priest-poet, one of the greatest masters of the tanka, whose life and works became the subject matter of many narratives, plays, and puppet dramas. For more about his life and work, see Mirror for the Moon: A Selection of Poems by Saigyo, translated with an Introduction by William R. Lafleur.
Saigyo's tanka is prefaced by the following joshi (prefatory note):
ReplyDeleteIn the world of men it came to be a time of warfare. Throughout the country -- west, east, north, and south -- there was no place where the war was not being fought. The count of those dying because of it climbed continually and reached an enormous number. It was beyond belief! And for what on earth was this struggle taking place? A most tragic state of affairs
This lengthy and sociopolitically conscious prefatory note establishes the thematic and emotive context of the poem while the tanka visually enhances the tone and mood. Saigyo's use of repetition in the last line adds extra emotional weight and psychological depth to the poem. "The irony is that we learn more about the times from this monk-poet who intentionally put distance between himself and what he called the ‘world’ than we do from the poetry of his contemporaries who went on living in the midst of the national capital, writing verses on set themes as if their society were not, in fact, falling apart” (William R. LaFleur, Mirror for the Moon : A Selection of Poems by Saigyo, p. xiv)
-- -- excerpted from "To the Lighthouse: Joshi (Prefatory Note) as a Poetic Device," accessed at https://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.com/2014/12/to-lighthouse-joshi-preface-prefatory.html