Akutagawa Ryunosuke KAPPA

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Akutagawa Ryunosuke
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (芥川 龍之介, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke)

(March 1, 1892 - July 24, 1927)
１８９２（明治３５）３,１－１９２７（昭和２）７,２４（自殺３６歳）

A Japanese writer active in Taisho period Japan. He is regarded as the "Father of the Japanese short story", and is noted for his superb style and finely detailed stories that explore the darker side of human nature.
Akutagawa ryuunosukeIn 1914, Akutagawa and his former high school friends revived the literary journal Shinshichō ("New Currents of Thought"), publishing translations of William Butler Yeats and Anatole France along with their own works.

Akutagawa published his first short story Rashōmon the following year in the literary magazine Teikoku Bungaku ("Imperial Literature"), while still a student. The story, based on a fantasy from late Heian period Japan, with a sharp twist of psychological drama, was largely unnoticed by the literary world, except by noted author Natsume Sōseki.

Encouraged by the praise, Akutagawa thereafter considered himself Sōseki's disciple, and began visiting the author for his literary circle meetings every Thursday.
It was also at this time that he started writing haiku under the haigo (or pen-name) Gaki, Hungry Ghost.


Read more in the
WIKIPEDIA

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MANDARINS: Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa.
Translated by Charles De Wolf

或阿呆の一生
"The Life of a Fool"
"The Life of a Stupid Man"
Aru Aho no Issho

and many other stories

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十七　蝶 Number 17 : Butterfly

藻の匂の満ちた風の中に蝶が一羽ひらめいてゐた。彼はほんの一瞬間、乾いた彼の唇の上へこの蝶の翅（つばさ）の触れるのを感じた。が、彼の唇の上へいつか捺（なす）つて行つた翅の粉だけは数年後にもまだきらめいてゐた。

"17 . butterfly
"In wind reeking of duckweed, a butterfly flashed. Only for an instant, on his dry lips he felt the touch of the butterfly wings. But years afterward, on his lips, the wings' imprinted dust still glittered."

trans. Will Petersen


"#18. Butterfly.
A butterfly fluttered its wings in a wind thick with the smell of seaweed. His dry lips felt the touch of the butterfly for the briefest instant, yet the wisp of wing dust still shone on his lips years later."

trans. Jay Rubin

"#18. A Butterfly.
A butterfly fluttered in the seaweed-scented breeze. For an instant, he felt its wings touch his parched lips. Even many years later, the powder on those wings that brushed his lips still glistened."

trans. Charles de Wolf
Discussing these translations
Larry Bole, Translating Haiku Fourm


A personal comment from Charles De Wolf

Here are my comments again on what is obviously for me an interesting discussion about translating Akutagawa.

Japanese mo (藻) corresponds in English to 'alga, duckweed,seaweed'. I'm something of a botanical ignoramus, but clearly these　aren't interchangeable, by way of either ecological niche or　literary "feel" cUnfortunately, Akutagawa doesn't tell us where he　has had the experience he describes, so the translator must make a　judgment.

The positive or negative meaning of Japanese nioi (匂い) 'smell,　odor, stench, scent' depends on context. German Geruch is similar,　cf. Dutch rieken, in contrast, of course, to English reek. nioi is a　tough word to translate. (More on that below)

Akutagawa clearly loved the water. As a very young man, he wrote a　(somewhat fictionalized) encomium to the lower reaches of the　Sumidagawa, the Great River (Ookawa). Another story, included in　Mandarins, is Umi no Hotori (By the Seaside), which recalls the time　he spent with his friend and fellow writer Kume Masao along the　eastern shores of Chiba Prefecture when they had just finished
university.　

My guess/feeling/preferred take is that Akutagawa is remembering a　vaguer (more wistful - ?) smell – and that it is of seaweed.

We all have our individualized semantic associations. I happen to　love the smell of the sea, the saltier and "weedier" the better.　Alga, however, reminds me of swimming pools awaiting hard work, and　my experience with duckweed is largely limited to a translation of a　story from Konjaku Monogatari, in which a dark and ominous　freshwater stream is choked with the stuff.

"seaweed-scented" was chosen for its brevity and alliterative　effect. Again, we all react to words and phrases in at least　slightly different ways. Still, a google-check of "seaweed-scented"　(I just did it for the first time myself) might change a few minds.

Donald Richie raises the interesting question of duration in regard　to shine vs. glisten, and lbolenyc makes it all the more interesting　by citing Petersen's translation.

The Japanese verb is kirameku, which is related to kira-kira, an onomatopoeic word associated with sparkling jewels, for example. If the subject were the stars, we'd obviously say "twinkle." My (subjective) feeling about glitter (now some forty years removed from Petersen's translation, before "lips" and "glitter" became associated with lipstick and rock stars) is that it's a bit less "dignified" than glisten. (My cultural/cosmetic history may be a bit shaky here.)
Furthermore, I think, glisten (again per Donald Richie's point) falls somewhere between shine and glitter.

The French translator of Ahou no Isshou (La Vie d'un Idiot) translates mo as herbes aquatiques, which sounds grimly "ecological" to me and kirameku as brillait ('shone'), as opposed to, say, é tincelait . But to each his/her own! (à chacun son goût!)

Your site is clearly a most worthwhile endeavor!

In the same Akutagawa story, there is a 相聞, one of many he wrote about a woman with whom he was trying to avoid having an affair by writing verses from afar.


風に舞ひたるすげ笠の
何かは道に落ちざらん
わが名はいかで惜しむべき
惜しむは君が名のみとよ。

Hat of sedge dancing in the wind:
How could it fail to drop into the road?
What need I fear for my name?
For your name alone do I fear.(Tr. Rubin)

The sedge hat dancing in the wind
Will fall in time into the road.
What fear have I for my good name,
When thine alone is dear to me?
(Tr. De Wolf)

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Haiku by Ryunosuke,
compiled by Larry Bole


aki tatsu hi uroba ni gin o uzume-keri

The day autumn began
I had a cavity in my tooth
filled with silver.
trans. Ueda

kogarashi ya mezashi ni nokoru umi-no iro

Wintry gusts:
on the sardine still lingers
the ocean's color.
trans. Ueda


Winter wind--
sardine's still
ocean-colored.
trans. Lucien Stryk


In the storm,
the color of sea
remains in dried fish
trans. Nori Matsuihttp://www.haikuworld.org/dogwood/fulltext/db_4.html

Nori Matsui comments:
"[This haiku] is very famous. Mezashi (small dried fish) usually is hung under the eaves, [in] groups. In a storm of rain and wind in ... autumn, Akutagawa saw the color of the sea from which the fish have come in the dried fish. Many of Akutagawa's haiku are very sensitive [to] season, weather, and his sense of desperation."



shiragiku ya nioi mo aru kage hinata

White chrysanthemums:
in the fragrance, too, there are
light and shade
trans. Ueda


White chrysanthemums--
light/dark,
even their smell.
trans. Stryk


hatsu aki no inago tsukameba yawarakaki

Early fall,
grabbing a locust,
It's soft!
trans. Nori Matsui

Early autumn--
as I grab a grasshopper,
how soft it feels!
trans. Ueda


usagi mo katamimi taruru taisho kana

Rabbit, too
drooping one ear,
very hot
trans. Nori Matsui

Even the rabbit
droops one of her ears--
midsummer heat!
trans. Ueda

And Akutagawa's death poem (given to his aunt prior to his committing suicide, to be delivered to his family doctor, himself a haiku poet, according to both Yoel Hoffman and Makoto Ueda):

mizubana ya hana no saki dake kure nokoru

"Deriding Myself"

My runny nose:
everywhere, except on that spot,
evening dusk falls.
trans. Ueda


"laughing at myself"
One spot alone,
left glowing in the dark:
my snotty nose.
trans. Hoffman


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KAPPA by Akutagawa




Kappa painting by Akutagawa 虎晩帰之図

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... a book titled The Beautiful and the Grotesque, which is a translation of short stories written by Akutagawa Ryuunosuke. He is probably best-known in the West as the author of the short story "In the Grove," which was made into the movie "Rashoomon."
He was also a pretty good haiku poet.

Akutagawa and Basho,
I found that Akutagawa also wrote two essays about Basho: Bashoo zakki 芭蕉雑記 (Notes on Basho) and Zoku Bashoo zakki 続芭蕉雑記 (Further Notes on Basho). I wonder if these have been translated into English outside of scholarly journals, if even there. I would love to read these two essays!

Makoto Ueda, in his book Modern Japanese Writers and the Nature of Literature, provides a taste of Akutagawa's appreciation of Basho, when he writes:

Akutagawa has also been credited with throwing a new light on Bashoo. Before he published "Miscellaneous Notes on Bashoo," the seventeenth-century haiku poet had been visualized as a lean, travel-worn sage who had no interest in mundane affairs. Akutagawa presented a new image of Bashoo by describing him as a sturdy, energetic man with a great many fleshly interests, including heterosexual and even homosexual ones. Here, for instance, is his condensed version of Bashoo's biography:
"He committed adultery and thereupon eloped from his native province Iga; arrived at Edo, where he frequented brothels and other such places there; and gradually evolved into one of the age's great poets."

source : Larry Bole, April 2012


yo ni furu wa sara ni Basho no shigure kana

falling on the world,
afresh -- Basho's
early winter rain

by Shiro (1742 - 1812)

from James H. Foard
"The Loneliness of Matsuo Basho"



世にふるも更に時雨のやどり哉
yo ni furu mo sara ni shigure no yadori kana

life in this world
just like a temporary shelter
from a winter shower

Soogi 宗祇(そうぎ) Iio Sogi (1421 - 1502)
Tr. Ueda Makoto


世にふるも更に宗祇のやどり哉
yo ni furu mo sara ni Soogi no yadori kana

life in this world
just like a temporary shelter
of Sogi's

Matsuo Basho
Tr. Ueda Makoto

Unison - Honkadori




rokotsu o basato tsutsumu ya kawabaori
. kawabaori 皮羽織 leather haori coat .


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. . . . . . . . . . . KIGO for late summer

Memorial Day for Akutagawa Ryunosuke, July 24
Gaki ki 餓鬼忌, Kappa ki 河童忌, Chookoodoo ki　澄江堂

His Haiku-Name (haigoo 俳号) was Gaki and Chookoodoo (Chokodo Shujin)


光りおり餓鬼忌に偲ぶ蜘蛛の糸
hikari ori Gaki Ki no shinobu kumo no ito

the thread of a spider
sparkles to remind us -
Akutagawa Memorial Day
(Tr. Gabi Greve)

http://homepage1.nifty.com/rmtr/sousaku/haiku.html


The Spider’s Thread
[Akutagawa Ryunosuke]
source : tonygonz.blogspot.com



More about GAKI, the hungry ghosts and haiku


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. kappa　河童 / 合羽　/ かっぱ Kappa water goblin .
- - my Kappapedia - -

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More about the Kappa and Haiku :

a kappa farting -
this too is the voice
of Buddha


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河童の恋する宿や夏の月
kawataro no koi suru yado ya natsu no tsuki

in a lodging
where the kappa is in love -
summer moon

. Yosa Buson 与謝蕪村 in Edo .


- quote
The Buson Zenshu has a rubi giving Kawataro for the pronunciation, usual for Kyoto. The editor/s imagine a sort of enchanted atmosphere with maybe a pretty maiden . . . Recalling Bassho's inn with the hagi plants also meaning mature women, I would not be surprised if it also hinted at the inn serving as a rendevous spot/getaway for kawatarou-kuge (a not so complementary term for nobles/kuge, as they, like kappa, were said to be weak in the presence of metal (money and/or weapons? or gold and/or silver -- not sure of these things)).
source : Robin D. Gill, fb, 2013


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. Suitengu 水天宮 Shrine for the Water God .

It features the mask of a Lucky Kappa, a water goblin, called
Fuku-Taroo 河童は、福を呼ぶ.
Sometimes, even a Kappa is some form of Suijinsama.

. - suijin 水神 Kappa as water deity - .
Kappapedia


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. 河童 / 合羽　/ かっぱ Kappa art motives .
- Kappapedia -



. - - - Join my Kappa friends on facebook ! - - - .

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HAIKU by Ryunosuke

青蛙おのれもペンキぬりたてか
aogaeru onore MO penki nuritate


Green frog,
Is your body also
freshly painted?


Sick and feverish
Glimpse of cherry blossoms
Still shivering.
.. www.toyomasu.com/


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Reference

Introducing Japanese Haiku Poets　

. kappa　河童 / 合羽　/ かっぱ Kappa The Water Goblin .
- - my Kappapedia - -


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