The waters of spring --
They are seen here,
Seen there....
Spring rains, snows melting, streamlets and trickles seen here, seen there. That is all Onitsura needed to say.
Blyth says "Very few English poets have attained to the simplicity of Onitsura in this verse."
In my translation I have used the "repeated subject" form, which is often very good for very simple things in English. First the subject -- the waters of spring -- is presented, and then we repeat it by means of "they" in the second line.
The original is even more simple, and literally reads like
Spring's water here-there at seen....
But of course that would not work in English, and when we write, we should use effective and good but simple English for hokku.
Copyright 2007
David Coomler
Posted at 08:19 am by hokku