Dear Larry, thanks so much for all these great contributions to the
ENTEN. Soon it will be over us.

"sweltering heat", I would associate with humidity also, and that is
not reallt ENTEN weather.

Just checking for photos, I found a temple called Entendera 炎天寺
where old Issa is venerated.
http://peepooblue.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2010/03/post-c02f.html

Murakami Haruki has a book on enten and rainy sky. 雨天炎天

There is even Enten no Yuki 炎天の雪

Well, look at some photos
http://www.google.co.jp/search?hl=ja&biw=818&bih=840&gbv=2&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=%E7%8\
2%8E%E5%A4%A9&aq=f&aqi=g3&aql=&oq=


So there is lots to do, I hope to pick it up soon.

Gabi


> 'Enten' gets translated into English in a variety of ways.
>
> My simple Random House Japanese-English dictionary defines 'enten' as:
> "very hot weather."
>
> Gabi, in the WKD saijiki entry for 'sky', defines 'enten' as:
> "blazing sky", "the burning [blazing] sun, hot weather, scorching sun."
>
> Blyth, in his comment on a haiku that uses the word 'enten', says:
> "'Enten' is extreme, windless heat under the direct rays of the sun."
>
> (The haiku that Blyth is commenting on:
>
> Enten ni kiku wo yashinau aruji kana
>
> In the burning sunshine,
> The master cherishes
> His chrysanthemums.
>
> --Shiki, trans. Blyth)
>
>
> What brought the various ways of translating 'enten' to my attention are
several different translations of a haiku by Seishi:
>
> enten-no / tooki / ho / ya / waga / kokoro-no / ho
> flaming-sky's / distant / sail / : / my / heart's / sail
>
> (literal translation by Makoto Ueda)
>
> Under the flaming sky,
> a distant sail: in my
> heart, a sail.
>
> trans. Ueda
>
>
> Sails in scorching heat
> in the offing are the sails
> within my spirit.
>
> trans. Kodaira & Marks
>
>
> Distant sail
> under blazing sun, sail
> of my heart
>
> trans. Beichman
>
>
> burning sun
> a distant sail
> of my heart
>
> trans. Haldane
>
>
> Seishi himself says of this haiku (from The Essence of Modern Haiku, trans.
Kodaira & Marks):
>
> I can see sails in the offing under a blazing sun. Living near the shore, I
often see white sails in the offing and carry them in my heart. The white sails
in the offing under a blazing sun are real, while the white sails within my
heart are not---the consonance of the real and the unreal.
>
> [end of comment]
>
>
> Ooka Makoto, in his book, A Poet's Anthology: The Range of Japanese Poetry,
comments on this haiku (trans. of comment by Janine Beichman):
>
> Depending on one's point of view, one might call this either a poem of youth,
in which a young person expresses longing, or else a poem of maturity, in which
an older person's sense of regret and isolation is projected onto a sail seen
far off in the distance. The brief haiku form, rather than conveying its
creator's real meaning openly, sometimes, as here, shows us a strangely
beautiful world, beyond time, beyond thought.
>
> In actual fact, this poem was written on August 22, 1945, one week after the
end of the war, while Seishi was convalescing from illness near the sea at Ise.
"Down and out" would probably best describe the mood it was born from.
>
> [end of comment]
>
>
> So, there have been a number of ways of translating 'enten' into English, in
translating haiku:
>
> burning sunshine
> flaming sky
> scorching heat
> blazing sun
> burning sun
>
> other translations of 'enten' from haiku not given in this post:
>
> scorching sunshine
> sky blazing
> scorching sky
> sun is blazing
> sweltering heat
>
>
> In general, I kind of like "sweltering heat," which is how David Lanoue
translates 'enten' for several of Issa's haiku. But "sweltering heat" implies a
personal bodily feeling.  In the context of Seihsi's haiku, in which something
is being observed at a distance, I like Beichman's "blazing sun" best.
>
>
> Larry
>