ka no koe no naka ni shisaku no ito o eshi
蚊の声の中に思索の糸を獲し

Shizunojo
http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/~hujino/001/ha-takesita.html

Issa wrote a haiku with .. ka no koe ..

ka no koe no naka [ni] akai zo kusa no hana

amid the buzz of mosquitoes
a bit of red...
wildflower

http://tinyurl.com/erppq


That seems a good translation to me

.............. amid the buzz of mosquitoes

better than the anthropomorphism of the VOICE
and making it sound like the one is happening because of the other with ..
THROUGH .. ,
.................. Through the mosquito's voice

I can imagine her sitting in the mosquito net (I used to live in one in the
first year of my stay at GokuRakuAn, with all the mosquitoes buzzing
outside, trying to get my thoughts together while looking through the loops
and threads ...), so here she sits trying to ponder ... I wonder which
haiku was really formed in her mind in this situation ! smile ...
With the idea of a mosquito net the idea of a thread is even more tempting
to me as some sort of shasei ...

so here is my first tentative version (still tainted with a toothache not
allowing very clear thinking ...:o( .. )

amid the buzz of mosquitoes
a thread of ideas is enfolding

Thanks, Hugh, for this exposition !
GABI

............................................................................

> TWENTIETH CENTURY JAPANESE PHILOSOPHICAL HAIKU : X Takeshita Shizunojo
>
> TENTH: Takeshita Shizunojo (1887 - 1951)
>
> Shizunojo was far too an intelligent woman to be deceived by the
> shallowness of shasei theory and Kyoshi's epistemological confusions.
> She resisted the supposed reforms and sought to express her
> individuality. She was the first of the Meiji haiku woman poets and
> published one volume of haiku poems, Hayate in 1940. After her death
> her complete works were published, Takeshita Shizunojo kubun shû, 1964.
>
> I have chosen a haiku which contrasts the experience of the external
> world and the inner experience of consciousness and rationality. The
> intellect acts on the world but does not create it. The poem might be
> said to belong to the Western tradition rather than to the mysticism
> (and deception) of Zen.
>
> ka no koe no naka ni shisaku no ito wo eshi
>
>
> The first phrase is ka no koe, the voice of a mosquito. This is the
> subject. The object particle wo follows ito which means thread.
> In my opinion, shisaku means a poetic thought. Thus we have the idea
> of a thread of poetic thought.
>
> The postposition particle ni together with naka suggest that the sound
> of the mosquito has been the reason for the thought starting.
> Thus the phrase no naka ni is the key to the translation. The particle
> ni has many uses in Japanese and cannot simpy be translated as the
> English "in."
>
> If the use of ni is as a causative agent, then we might expect a
> specific verb such as yoru [owing to] to follow. Possibily the verb
> eru has this existential sense = something is happening as a result of
> a condition being established. Something has been acquired. If -shi
> is the preterite suffix, then I offer the following translation:
>
> Through the mosquito's voice
> I started a thread of poetic thought.
>
> Blyth did not translate this haiku. [The haiku is not included in
> Modern Japanese Literature in Translation: A Bibliography. Kodansha
> 1979 ISBN 0 87 011 3399]
>
> Blyth held the view that intellect and emotion are the enemies of
> poetry. He believed that all of Chiyo-ni's haiku were tainted with
> subjectivity. No doubt he held similar erroneous views about
> Shizunojo. In the modern haiku establishment similar views can be
> found - denial of pronouns, avoidance of abstractions, fear of the past
> tense, and paranoia about philosophy. If we could get rid of this
> Blyth dogmatism, then we might appreciate Shizunojo more, and indeed
> all of these Twentieth Century Japanese Philosophical Haiku, and place
> Chiyo-ni among the best haiku poets.
>
> Shizunojo began writing haiku about 1919. She needed to be free of
> Kyoshi's influence before she could freely express her own ideas.
> In this haiku, the only concrete image is the sound of the mosquito.
> She was a hard working mother and wife, and no doubt this haiku
> occurred to her at night. Perhaps the mosquito's sound was
> intermittent. Perhaps she was resting in the dark when her ideas
> became clear. Her thoughts are not expressed, but the thread metaphor
> suggests that they continued to some finality. Thus we have the
> imagination and intellect working independently of the supposed
> objective observation. She is involved in an active process.
>
> If we believe that there are only three epistomological models;
> mysticism, rationality, and dogmatic prescription, and we accept
> rationality, then we should appreciate that Shizunojo is trying to
> think out a haiku rather than passively receiving the experience as
> required by some haiku theorists.
> There is a wealth of philosophy here hidden in the simplicity of the
> words.
>
> Hugh Bygott
> ___________________________________________________________________


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