Gabi,

I was wondering about that. Are these just woodcutters who are cutting and
gathering firewood to use for their own fires and to sell to others as firewood?
Or are these loggers or lumberjacks, who are cutting down big trees to provide
lumber for various kinds of construction?

If these are more like loggers/lumberjacks, then woodcutter in English would be
misleading. And if they are more like loggers/lumberjacks, how did they get the
tree trunks out of the forests? Like they used to do here, with teams of horses
or mules, and chains?

In the 19th Century, in the US, lumberjacks weren't necessarily poor. And they
would often go off to lumber camps, much like sailors going to sea, leaving
their families for the lumbering season. America has mythic characters for
various occupations, and the mythic character for lumberjacks is Paul Bunyon and
his blue ox, Babe. There are also mythic characters for other occupations, such
as John Henry, a steel-driving man, for railroad track laying (driving in the
spikes with a sledge hammer).

Are there mythic workers in Japan, besides various deities?

Larry

--- In translatinghaiku@yahoogroups.com, Greve Gabi <gokurakuatworldkigo@...>
wrote:
>
> Thanks again, Larry
> my English is indeed not good enough for the fine print.
>
> We would say Waldarbeiter in German. and Holzfaeller (woodcutter) is
> a part of that work, not all what they do.
> I changed my translation
>
> Maybe lumberjack would do it also ? That sounds great too.
>
> http://www.dict.cc/german-english/Waldarbeiter.html
>
> Gabi
>
>
> http://worldkigodatabase.blogspot.com/2010/04/cleavers-mugura.html
>
>
>
>
> > Thanks for the info, Gabi!
> >
> > Singular vs. plural is often an issue in translating haiku  I see your
point: is Basho standng nearby and observing a group of workers, or imagining a
group of workers? I was thinking that maybe a woodcutter was accompanying him
for a while on his way somewhere, or guiding him through a forested area. But
plural works too.
> >
> > "Poor" is good, but I'm not so sure about "forest workers." If someone told
me he or she was a "forest worker," I wouldn't really have an idea of what they
did in the forest. Whereas "woodcutter" has a clear meaning in English, being
someone who cuts wood (for a living). And although rather archaic in developed
countries, or developed areas of countries, I think that one could still find
relatively current pictures, taken in rural areas or forested areas, or
mountainous areas around the world, of people hauling cut wood out of forests or
woods, bundled on their backs, or on horses' backs, or in carts.
> >
> > And thanks for the picture!  "Weed(s)" is more what they look like than
"grass(es)." I don't think many people today, at least in the US, could picture
what is meant by "bedstraw grass."  Those words, "straw" and "grass,"  make me
think of something thin-stemmed.
> > So I don't think Reichhold's translation, although horticulturally
informative, is the best choice for an English translation, if she wants people
to be able to picture the scene.
> >
> > Larry
> >
>