haru ya mukashi sen gohyaku man goku no jooka kana

"Spring season reminds me of the capital town of 150,000 goku."

Masaoka Shiki

http://www.infocreate.co.jp/hometown/matsuyam/haiku-e.html

aaa. I do not know who did this translation, but it does not reflect the
kire after spring, and it uses the word GOKU as if a non-Japanese reader
would know what this means ...

it's spring - in olden times
the castle town of
great riches

(my first tentative rendering into English)
any suggestions ?

...
the richness of a domain in the Edo period was calculated in barrels or
bags of tax rice (koku, goku) and 150.000 barrels was quite a lot.
I wonder how to translate this word for word into English and keep it
understandable and haiku-like ?!

jooka , below the castle, is short for .. jooka machi .. , the town at the
feet of a domain,s caslte. Nowadays the word is often used with a lot of
nostalgia for the good old times in Edo period. The castle of Matsuyama is
right up on a large hill, overlooking the city and can bee seen from many
small streets in the town.

Matsuyama and Masaoka Shiki go together in the Haiku World.
Here are a few more LINKs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/happyhaiku/message/

Greetings from Okayama, another jooka machi, about 3 hours drive from
Matsuyama ...
http://www.amie.or.jp/daruma/Koraku-En.html

GABI


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