Dear Mariko,

You've got them all, except for the third character in from the right. That one
looks a little different in the book (but in the book it's possible that it's
been printed reversed--it's hard to tell).

The context of the haiku is rather poignant.

Eiko Yachimoto, in an essay, "Haiku by Hashimoto Takako," in the World Haiku
Review, comments on the poem:

Matsumoto Seicho wrote that Takako looked as if in her thirties when she was in
her fifties. She evidently did not look her age even in her last years during
illness. Not knowing she had cancer, Takako did not realise that she would die
in the hospital during which she composed the above haiku.

[end of comment]

And Ooka Makoto writes (Tr. Janine Beichman):

From 'Myoojuu' (Life's End, 1965), her posthumous collection of haiku. This poem
appears at the end of the collection, together with "Fierce snow / So many the
words / I leave behind". ('Yuki hageshi Kaki-nokosu koto nan zo ooki'). It is
about taking a bath the day before she entered hospital for the last time.

Outside there is snow. She washes each finger and each toe with special care. A
grave illness has ensconced itself within her; the premonition that she will be
parting with her body soon arouses an infinite tenderness.

Takako's poems, with their precise expression and freshness of feeling, possess
a strong sense of individuality.

[end of comment]

And Susumu Takiguchi's comment:

As was mentioned, Takako suffered from cancer, which eventually ended her life.
Her love for life crystalized into this moving depiction of self-love. Though
her body was progressively destroyed, her heart may have come to tranquility and
some kind of nirvana. To that degree she may have become contented with life
after all...

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/language/20061123TDY15001.htm

(You can find the article re-posted in Gabi's worldkigolibrary)

As Takiguchi points out in the article from which his comment above is taken:

Takako was unusually conscious of death and wrote many haiku talking about her
own dying. Snow for her was something sacred and pure where love, beauty and
peace could all be sublimated into a true "singularity."

[end of comment]

Here are some more of Takako's "snow" haiku:

hashi toru toki hata ya yuki furi furu

taking up chopsticks
I am all alone--
it snows and snows

Tr. Ueda


yuki hageshi tsuma no te no hoka shirazu shisu

the fierce snowfall--
I'll die having known no hands
other than my husband's

Tr. Ueda

blizzard
I'm to die not knowing any hands
besides my husband's

Tr. Yachimoto

it snows hard...
I will be dying without knowing
other hands than my husband's

Tr. Takiguchi


setsugen no kururu ni hi naki sori ni iru

Well, here I am, on the sleigh without
light
stuck in a snow covered field

Hung up in a snowfield,
I on the sleigh, lamenting
the need of light

Tr. Debra Woolard Bender, both versions


yuki hageshi dakarete ikino tsumarishi koto

Gasping for life, choked by his
embrace
as it happened...the storming
snow

Tr. Eiko Yachimoto

it snows hard...
being held tight I feel as if
I were choking

Tr. Susumu Takiguchi


ikiru wa yoshi shizuka naru yuki isogu yuki

it's good
to be alive; quiet snow
and hasty snow...

Tr. Susumu Takiguchi


yuki hageshi kaki nokosu koto nanzo ooki

it snows hard...
how could it be enormous what I must
write before dying?

Tr. Takiguchi

Fierce snow
So many the words
I leave behind

Tr. Beichman


--Larry


> Dear Larry,
>
> I like your rendition of the haiku.
>
> As for the kanji or the Japanese text, this is what I construct from
> the translations you kindly listed for us all.
>
> I'm going to put down the Japanese text on my blog again.
>
> http://arsmaki.exblog.jp/13872760/
>
> When I put down the haiku in Japanese, it revealed that there has been
> one more reading for the last word, i.e. besides "itoshi" and "aishi,"
> we can read it "itooshi." The thrid word sounds the most natural,
> but this renders "jiamari."
>
> Mariko
>
>
> --- On Fri, 2011/6/24, lbolenyc <lbolenyc@...> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Ah, if I could I would. I can't find the characters for this haiku online, and
the only print source I have that shows the characters is Ooka Makoto's book, "A
Poet's Anthology: The Range of Japanese Poetry." If Gabi can't find the
characters for this haiku, I guess I could try and scan it from the book, and
then send it as a picture.
>
> I can describe the last character: it's a simple verticle line that curves up
to the right at the bottom, like a fish hook.
>
> Larry
>
> --- In translatinghaiku@yahoogroups.com, "Hjh halela bt. hj a. razak"
<kudaka2001@> wrote:
> >
> > Dear Larry,
> >
> > If you don't mind can I see that haiku in the original Japanese text as I
understand it better that way.
> >
> > Thanks and regards.
> >
> > hjh halela hj a. razakKudaka FamilyNaha, Okinawa
> > JPkudaka2001@ MyBlogLog and get a signature like this!
> >
> > --- On Thu, 23/6/11, lbolenyc <lbolenyc@> wrote:
> >
> > From: lbolenyc <lbolenyc@>
> > Subject: [Translating Haiku] A haiku by Hashimoto Takako
> > To: translatinghaiku@yahoogroups.com
> > Date: Thursday, 23 June, 2011, 8:20 PM
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Â
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > I'm trying to figure out the translation for each romaji word, but I find
different versions of the romaji for the last word.
> >
> >
> >
> > Here is the haiku in the different versions I have found:
> >
> >
> >
> > Given by Makoto Ueda:
> >
> > yuki no hi no yokushin isshi isshi itoshi
> >
> >
> >
> > Given by Ooka Makoto (with Janine Beichman), and also by Eiko Yachimoto:
> >
> > yuki no hi no yokushin isshi isshi kanashi
> >
> >
> >
> > Given by Susumu Takiguchi;
> >
> > yuki no hi no yokushin isshi isshi ai-shi
> >
> >
> >
> > (some of the above versions eliminate spaces between some words, or
hyphenate some words, but I tried to keep the presentation as uniform as
possible in order to focus on the difference in the last word.)
> >
> >
> >
> > So, 'yuki' = snow, 'hi' = day, 'yokushin' I assume is some verb form meaning
to take a bath, 'isshi' = finger, but I assume it can also mean toe, and then we
have the last word. I assume in the last word somewhere is the meaning 'foot' as
well as the concept 'love', but it's a mystery to me.
> >
> >
> >
> > Anyway, here are the various translations:
> >
> >
> >
> > on a snowy day
> >
> > my bathed body, a finger
> >
> > a toe--I love all of it!
> >
> >
> >
> > Tr. Makoto Ueda
> >
> >
> >
> > A snowy day
> >
> > a bath in my body
> >
> > each finger each toe dear
> >
> >
> >
> > Tr. Janine Beichman
> >
> >
> >
> > bathing as snow falls
> >
> > how I caress
> >
> > each finger, each toe
> >
> >
> >
> > Tr. Eiko Yachimoto
> >
> >
> >
> > snowy day...
> >
> > my bathing body, I love
> >
> > each finger, each foot
> >
> >
> >
> > Tr. Susumu Takiguchi
> >
> >
> >
> > The translation I like least is the one by Janine Beichman. Her second line
makes no sense. Maybe it got typeset incorrectly, and it should read "my body in
a bath." But even though that makes much more sense, I don't like the
old-fashioned expression 'dear', as in 'to hold something dear', meaning
precious; or 'that's very dear', meaning costly.
> >
> >
> >
> > My translation, based solely on the other English translations, would be a
modification of Eiko Yachimoto's:
> >
> >
> >
> > a snowy day--
> >
> > taking a bath, I caress
> >
> > each finger, each toe
> >
> >
> >
> > --Larry
> >
>