To my eyes it is delightful--
the fan of my beloved,
completely white.

trans. Sawa and Shiffert


So happy to the eye,
The pure white fan
Of you whom I dearly love.

trans. Blyth

Blyth says:

... In the verse above, the mere whiteness of the girl's fan, the
fact that it is this colour and no other, is full of grateful
significance to the lover, who does not however realize that the
meaning of the colour of the fan is partly in his own feelings. At
the moment, his emotion is white, and he sees rightly enough what a
white fan is, what its whiteness means, why it is white.


delightful to the eye--
the fan of my beloved
is spotlessly white

trans. Ueda

Ueda says:

Buson held ... hokku-writing meetings throughout 1774, usually
producing several poems at each. He also composed many more hokku
independently of the meetings. Here [is an example]:

[cited haiku]

[This] poem is another study of the human psyche, in this instance of
the secret longing a young woman harbors toward a man. One summer day
she observes him leisurely fanning himself, and the whiteness of the
fan delights her because her instincts say it is indicative of his
spotless character.
___________________________________________________

I find it interesting that Blyth makes it a girl's fan, and Ueda
makes it a man's fan.

Larry


> me ni ureshi koigimi no sen mashiro naru
>
> Buson
>
>
>
> pease check the kanji here
> http://wkdkigodatabase03.blogspot.com/2007/09/joy-ureshisa-
tanoshisa.html
>
>
> I found translations in three languages of this haiku, but none in
English
> yet.
>
> What would it be ? koigimi, my try
>
>
> so nice to look at
> this white folding fan
> of my lover
>
>
> and what would be the hidden meaning of it ?
>
>
> Help me with the translation please.
>
> GABI
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>