Reviewed
by William J. Higginson
Back
Roads to Far Towns: Bashôs Travel Journal.
Translated by Cid Corman s Journal and Kamaike
Susumu, illustrated by Hide Oshiro. Companions for
the Journey Series, number 5 (Buffalo, N.Y.: White
Pine Press, 2004). ISBN 1-893996-31-X. 93 pages,
5½ x 7½; paperback. $13.00
The
first complete English translation of Bashôs
most famous travel journal, Oku no hosomichi,
that I know of, Yaichiro Isobes The Poetical
Journey in Old JapanBashô, Tokyo
1933, begins this way:
Time
is a passenger through eons of eons, as months and
years are everlasting travellers.
And,
while Isobe presents the Japanese text and romanized
versions of the hokku throughout, he eschews the
task of actually translating the hokku, instead
offering a paraphrase of each. Here
is the first:
Like
ever-changing human life, the thatched cottage too
has changed hands, to be a house in which Imperial
dolls will be set out at the Girls Festival.
While
this certainly delivers a decent version of the
basic meaning of Bashôs hokku, it hardly
resembles poetry in either Japanese or English.
That would take a while to come.
More
than thirty years passed before the next full English
translation, also by a Japanese, and the first to
be popularly available outside Japan. (There may
have been an earlier complete translation in one
or another academic or literary journal, but I am
not aware of any.) Nobuyuki Yuasas The
Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches,
Hammondsworth, UK, 1966, and still available in
an inexpensive paperback from Penguin, includes
translations of five of Bashôs travel
sketches; his version of Oku no hosomichi
begins thus, followed by his translation of that
first hokku:
Days
and months are travellers of eternity. So are
the years that pass by. [
]
Behind
this door
Now buried in deep grass,
A different generation will celebrate
The Festival of Dolls.
Aside
from adding material not in the original, this hardly
seems like an advance over Isobes paraphrase.
Wisely, Yuasa does not include any of the original.
Close on the heels of Yuasas version, Cid
Corman and the Japanese scholar Susumu Kamaikes
attempt, called Back Roads to Far Towns: Bashôs
Okuno-hosomichi, came out from Mushinsha / Grossman
in 1968. This edition, sumptuously illustrated by
Ikutada Hayakawa, includes the entire original text,
with plenty of furigana to aid the student
in figuring out the pronuncia tions. The same opening
line and first hokku in their version appear thus:
Moon
& sun are passing figures of countless generations,
and years coming or
going wanderers too. [
]
the
grass door too
turning into
a dolls house
From
then on, new editions of the Corman / Kamaike version
would appear from time to time, including a slightly
defective paperback, also from Mushinsha / Grossman,
in 1971; a revised edition in which the translated
hokku expand to 575 (see below), from
White Pine Press, 1986; a reprint of the first paperback
edition, with a new introduction by Robert Hass
(who would become the American poet laureate the
following year), from Ecco Press, 1996; and now
the present reprint of the White Pine edition, 2004.
Before looking at this most recent printing, lets
continue our excursion through other popular editions.
The
year after the Corman / Kamaike edition first appeared,
a valuable book by Earl Miner, Japanese Poetic
Diaries, came out from Columbia University Press.
Miner had, among other things, collaborated on the
foundation work Japanese Court Poetry with
Robert Brower (Stanford University Press, 1961),
and was one of the first major scholars writing
in English to develop a serious interest in Bashôs
writings, following Donald Keenes lead in
Anthology of Japanese Literature (1955).
In his 1969 Japanese Poetic Diaries, Miner
includes a complete translation of Oku no hosomichi,
which he calls The Narrow Road through the
Provinces, with the opening and
first hokku presented as:
The
months and days are the wayfarers of the centuries,
and as yet another year
comes round, it, too, turns traveler. [
]
My
old grasshut,
Lived in now by another generation,
Is decked out with dolls.
This
at least seems to walk the line between paraphrase
and incomprehensibility; grasshut is
the translators word, not the poets.
No Japanese text is included, though there are ample
notes.
In
1974, Dorothy Britton, also known as Lady Bouchier
and primarily trained as a musical composerwho
grew up in Japan, Britain, and Americapublished
her version as A Haiku Journey: Bashôs
the narrow road to the far north
and selected haiku in a large-format book of photographs
by Dennis Stock (Kodansha International). The text
of just the Oku no hosomichi
translation was later issued by the same publisher
in paperback under the title A Haiku Journey:
Bashôs Narrow Road to a Far Province
(1980). Our sample s passage goes as follows
in both editions:
The
passing days and months are eternal travellers
in time. The years that come
and go are travellers too. [
]
This
rude hermit cell
Will be different now, knowing Dolls
Festival as well.
except
that the apostrophe in Dolls moved
to the correct position following the letter s
in the paperback. Neither edition includes any Japanese.
After a lapse of fifteen years or moreaside
from the Corman / Kamaike White Pine reprint mentioned
abovea new decade of Oku no hosomichi
translations began with a complete version included
in Helen Craig McCulloughs Classical Japanese
Prose, a massive collection from Stanford University
Press with the usual scholarly apparatus and romanized
Japanese for the verses. She begins The Narrow
Road of the Interiorthe first time Bashôs
title is rendered literally in Englishthis
way:
The
sun and the moon are eternal voyagers; the years
that come and go are
travelers too. [
]
Even
my grass-thatched hut
will have new occupants now:
a display of dolls.
The
following year, 1991, Sam Hamills version,
called Narrow Road to the Interior, appeared
in a pocket-sized format from Shambhala. Our key
sample:
The
moon and sun are eternal travelers. Even the years
wander on. [
]
Even
this grass hut
may be transformed
into a dolls house
This
same version heads up Hamills more substantial
volume of 1998, The Essential Bashô,
also from Shambhala. To the Oku no hosomichi
he adds translations of more travel diaries and
several haiku. As one might expect in a pocket-sized
edition, there is no Japanese, though adding it
for the larger volume would have been helpful.
Two
new versions of the Oku no hosomichi appeared in
1996. Donald Keene, the dean of Japanese literature
studies in English, offered The Narrow Road to
Oku, published by Kodansha International in
a glossy trade paperback with striking illustrations
by Masayuki Miyata and the complete Japanese text.
Our opening passage in his version:
The
months and days are the travellers of eternity.
The years that come and go
are also voyagers. [
]
Even
a thatched hut
May change with a new owner
Into a dolls house.
Hiroaki
Sato, a well-known translator who has specialized
in modern Japanese poetry but also done substantial
work with classical poetry, brought out a book with
the complex title Bashôs Narrow Road:
Spring and Autumn PassagesNarrow Road to the
Interior and the renga sequence A Farewell
Gift to SoraTwo Works by Matsuo Bashô,
from Stone Bridge Press. Despite the titles
whiff of 18th century prolixity and sounding as
though only portions of the cited works are included,
this complete translation of the Oku no hosomichi
is not excessively wordy, and includes the most
extensive (one might almost say pedantic) set of
notes available in English. Our sample passage:
The
months and days are wayfarers of a hundred generations,
and the years that
come and go are also travelers. [
]
In
my grass hut the residents change: now a dolls
house
Sato
presents each hokku in one line, with romanized
text. His versions of the hokku are also among the
most literal. The inclusion of an important Bashô-school
haikai no renga the only one surviving with
Bashôs correctionsmakes this a
doubly-valuable work, touching at some depth the
two kinds of writing for which Bashô was justly
regarded as a great master in his
own generation, diary literature and linked poetry.
And
now we have a fresh reprint of the second Corman
/ Kamaike version, in the handy pocket-sized format
of White Pines Companions for the Journey
Series. This edition is their first without the
Japanese, which was eliminated to keep the size
small and the type comfortably readable. While the
prose of the revised edition was not much reworked,
the first hokku has been drastically altered from
the version in the first edition. Here they are:
First
Corman / Kamaike version
the
grass door too
turning into
a dolls house
Later
Corman / Kamaike version
the
grass door also
turning and turning into
a dolls household
So
far as I know, this reworking is entirely at Cormans
hands. While I generally feel that a 575
approach to translating Japanese haiku results in
wordy, slack language, Corman seems to be one of
the few master mechanics of English who can pull
it off reasonably well. This first hokku in the
Oku no hosomichi, as I hope readers grasp
by now, is extremely difficult to convey in anything
like the condensed wording of the original Japanese,
of which the romaji and a literal trot might
read:
kusa
no to mo sumikawaru yo zo hina no ie
grasss
door too changed-resident(s) time ! dolls
house
My
fairly literal translation, taking into account
the idiomatic expression at the beginning, would
be:
even
my grass cottage
changes residents over time
a house of dolls
which
hardly makes sense without the accompanying prose
and a knowledge of the Festival of Dolls and the
representation of the ancient Imperial court that
these dolls embody.
Two
more examples may give some insight into Cormans
intentions in these new, longer, more interior
translations. These poems are both well known, so
I will not review the introductory material with
which Bashô supplies them. The earlier Corman
/ Kamaike versions are more literal; the new version
may be found in the new reprint.
First
Corman/Kamaike version
summer
grass
warriors
dreams ruins
Later
Corman/Kamaike version
the
summer grasses
the mightiest warriors
dreams consequences
First
Corman/Kamaike version
quiet
into rock
cicada sounds
Later
Corman/Kamaike version
silence itself is
absorbing in the rock absorbing
cicada sounds
Like
all translations, these are diverse interpretations
of the two poems. The first set, done in the 1960s
when Corman was in his forties, reads as one would
hope, quite literally. The hints of his deeper readings
show up only in diction, in words like ruins
and absorbing. But the heaviness of
Bashôs verse in the warriors dreams
poem and the increasing intensity of Bashôs
several extant rewrites of the cicada poem over
four years suggest that Cormans readings almost
two decades later in his own life bring out a depth
that may be quite justified in the heart and mind
of an aging Bashô.
This
story, of course, will go on. I know of at least
one new translation of Oku no hosomichi about
to appear, and another that I expect to see in a
few years. But I cannot recommend waiting for them
before buying one for shelf, bedside table, or pocket,
for it seems unlikely that a really new interpretation
will appear any time soon. For a straightforward
translation with plenty of scholarly assistance
to aid understanding, Hiroaki Satos is probably
the best. For a quality literary translation with
the original en face, I would still recommend the
original Corman/Kamaike version, which should be
available through libraries in either of the Mushinsha/Grossman
editions or the Ecco Press edition. For a companion
to travel with in pocket, purse, or backpack, the
newly reprinted Corman/Kamaike version, even with
its somewhat wordy and abstract treatment of the
hokku, certainly recommends itself. Reading these,
one may well get closer to the interior
of Bashô the person than is otherwise possible,
though Bashô the poet would probably have
preferred the earlier, tighter versions. Reading
Cormans earlier and later versions side-byside,
or the later Corman versions beside Satos
eminently clean and relatively literal versions,
would provide the best of all possible worlds, in
the world of the Oku no hosomichi in English.
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