Matsuo Bashō - Oku no hosomichi - The Narrow Road to Deep North - Eng trn by dr Tim Chilcott (2004).pdf

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MATSUO BASHÖ
OKU NO HOSOMICHI
THE NARROW ROAD TO
THE DEEP NORTH
Introduction
Chronology
Map of Bashō’s Journey
PARALLEL TEXT
Notes
Further Reading and Links
a portrait of Bashō,
now in the Itsuo Museum,
Ikeda City, Osaka
[The word
NOTE
in the text indicates a particular crux of
translation, which is discussed further. Click on
NOTE
to be taken
to the relevant discussion, and then on
RETURN
to come back
to the translation.]
©
www.tclt.org.uk
2004
INTRODUCTION
Or may there be some means by which all these barriers can be
surmounted, and the original text presented in a close, faithful and
resonant way?
INTRODUCTION
Translating Bashō
The seeds for this translation of one of the classic works in Japanese
literature were sown over forty years ago. One of the most compelling
accounts of poetry I heard as an undergraduate student was a reading by
Christopher Logue from what was then his recently published translation
of Book 16 of Homer’s
Iliad.
Logue’s version sounded with an
enormous, visceral power. It leapt, twisted, invented, clashed,
modernised, contorted, visualised – in ways that made all other
translations of the poem seem staid and bland. Since then, it has become
clear that this dramatic and verbal energy was no isolated
tour de force
by
a young poet. Forty four years later, Logue’s radical approach to
translating the poem (All
Day Permanent Red,
2003, a rendering of the
first battle scenes in Books 5-8) retains all of its earlier power to wrench
and dislocate the original into a contemporary poetic idiom. There is,
however, one aspect of the translation that, then as now, is likely at the
very least to bemuse, if not actually to shock. Logue cannot read ancient
Greek, not a word of it. He has created his
Iliad
by consulting already
existing renderings, developing a sense of what the original is saying, and
then taking off to create his own version. In the words of one reviewer, on
the surface at least ‘it’s like learning of a deaf man who prepared himself
to conduct Stravinsky by watching
Fantasia’.
However quixotic or foolish Logue’s task may seem, though, the
unquestionable power and richness of the result raises a fundamental
question: to what extent, if any, is it possible to translate from a language
of which one has little or no knowledge? Is it simply impossible? Or will
such a version have to rely upon so many extraneous aids (numerous
other translations, massive resort to commentaries and dictionaries,
constant oversight by native speakers of the original language, and so
forth) as to drown any individual voice in what will be essentially the
translation of a collective? If these supports are not available, will such a
text inevitably have to be loose paraphrase or imitation or re-composition
because the complex connotations of the original cannot be understood?
ii
This avowedly experimental translation of Matsuo Bashō’s
Oku no
Hosomichi
raises all of the questions mentioned above; and while it may
not answer all of them, it attempts at least to scrutinise, test and explore
them. The personal journey may be worth describing briefly. At the very
beginning of drafting the translation, I knew not a word of Japanese. I had
for years been interested in
haiku
– that infinitely concentrated moment
of perception condensed into 17 syllables of verse – and also in travel
writing. And Bashō’s name had long been known, as one of the greatest
exponents of both
haiku
and travelogue. But of the language in which he
had written, I knew nothing.
Such ignorance might seem problematic enough in a translation from a
European language with a similar script and basic structure. But from a
language with a demonstrably different script and structure, the ignorance
might seem insurmountable. Even a cursory reading in a Japanese
grammar is enough to highlight quite radical differences between
Japanese and English. Nouns in Japanese, to take a single example, have
no gender, or case, or distinction between singular and plural. The
Japanese for ‘dog’ or ‘a dog’ or ‘two dogs’ or ‘many dogs’ is the same
word (‘inu’, in Romanised Japanese). Verbs, similarly, remain the same
whether the person is first, second or third, singular or plural, masculine,
feminine or neuter. There are no terms corresponding to the definite and
indefinite articles:
the
tree and
a
tree are the same word, ‘ki’. Together
with three different writing scripts (Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana),
which can be written either vertically or horizontally, and a different
sequencing of subject, object and verb, these features might seem to make
for a total impenetrability – a language rooted in paradox and ambiguity,
and understandable only after years of immersion.
Given this context, there are three major ways in which the challenge
of translating
Oku no Hosomichi
has been taken up, and each is worth
developing in a little detail:
other translations
There are currently no fewer than eight different translations into English
of the whole of
Oku no Hosomichi,
together with several versions of parts
of it. Placing these versions alongside each other at every step of the way
iii
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
allows two contrasting features to emerge: the lowest common
denominators (whether part of speech or syntactic ordering) that all the
versions share, but also the differences in tone and register between them.
Consider, for instance, the celebrated opening ‘sentence’ to the
travelogue:
The passing days and months are eternal travellers in time. The
years that come and go are travellers too (Britton).
Moon & sun are passing figures of countless generations, and years
coming or going wanderers too (Corman).
The moon and sun are eternal travellers. Even the years wander on
(Hamill).
The months and days are the travellers of eternity. The years that
come and go are also voyagers (Keene).
The sun and the moon are eternal voyagers; the years that come
and go are travelers too (McCullough).
The months and days are the wayfarers of the centuries and as yet
another year comes round, it, too, turns traveller (Miner).
The months and days are wayfarers of a hundred generations, and
the years that come and go are also travelers (Sato).
Days and months are travellers of eternity. So are the years that
pass by (Yuasa).
The shared denominators here can be easily identified:
moon/sun (months/days)
travellers/passing figures/wayfarers/wanderers
eternal (eternity)/countless generations/of the
centuries/of a hundred generations
year/years/another year
come and go/wander on/pass by
too/also/so/even
Yet these common features are orchestrated very differently. The choice
between moon or month, and sun or day, is answered by five translators
in one way, and three in another. The definite article is in one case
iv
applied to both nouns; in five other cases, to only one; in two cases, to
neither. Levels of diction vary: the generic ‘traveller’ is occasionally
repeated, or juxtaposed against the more antique resonances of ‘wayfarer’
and ‘voyager’. In terms of rhythm, too, there are manifest differences:
from the curt, rather banal ‘even the years wander on’, through the
slightly convoluted, over-explicatory ‘and as yet another year comes
round, it, too, turns traveller’, to the persuasive iambic stresses of ‘the
years that come and go are travellers too’.
Such analysis of both the common and the individual features in each
of the translations soon makes apparent the strengths and weaknesses of
each rendering. Tired diction here, inappropriate register there; natural,
unforced cadence here, resonant phrasing there. And as word is compared
with word, phrase with phrase, an almost intuitive sense develops, not
only of
what
Bashō’s original says, but of
how
it can best be translated
into English. The mental notes made can be illustrated by reference to
Bashō’s title,
Oku no Hosomichi:
phrase only occurs at one point in the narrative (‘kano ezu ni
makasete tadoriyukaba,
oku no hosomichi
no yamagiwa ni tofu no
suge ari’)
oku
= general name for the northern provinces; can also mean
‘interior(s)’ or ‘inner recess(es)’
no
= links two nouns: at, in, of, on
hosomichi
= thin/narrow + road/path/way
Narrow Road to a Far Province
(Britton): no article before
‘Narrow Road’ – evocative, or dulling? ‘far’ is good. ‘Province’ –
accurate but lacking resonance?
Back Roads to Far Towns
(Corman): too overtly urban and
modern. Why highlight ‘towns’? ‘Back roads’ suggests a detour
from existing ‘main roads’, which is surely not what Bashō meant.
Monosyllabic rhythm?
Narrow Road to the Interior
(Hamill and Sato): no article again
before ‘Narrow Road’ – I’m torn between finding this productively
suggestive and rather bland. ‘Interior’ is good, intimating both
geographical and psychological conditions.
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
The Narrow Road to Oku
(Keene): ‘to’ is better than ‘of’ in
evoking sense of travel
towards.
But leaving ‘Oku’ untranslated
will surely produce blankness, rather than telling ambiguity, to an
English-speaking reader. What, who, where is ‘Oku’?
The Narrow Road of the Interior
(McCullough): seems slightly
prescriptive in resonance. ‘Of’ implies that the ‘Interior’ has
already been reached, rather than travelled towards.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North
(Yuasa): evocative,
suggesting both the difficulty and the penetration of the journey.
Perhaps ‘Deep North’ is a little free, but it well conveys the sense
of a far-off land, reached only after difficulty.
relationships. The word ‘ya’, for instance, performs the function of a
kireji,
or ‘cutting word’. In Nobuyuki Yuasa’s words, ‘when a
kireji
is
used in the middle of a poem it cuts the stream of thought for a brief
moment, thereby indicating that the poem consists of two thoughts half
independent of each other.’ ‘Ya’ also expresses a sense of wonder or
excitement, and the closest English equivalent would probably be an
exclamation mark. The opening five syllables, then, must evoke the
wonder and profundity of the stillness, and conclude with the slightest of
pauses before the poem resumes. When it does, another important signal
is given: not simply the outer contrast between ‘rock’ and ‘voice’, but
also the fact that ‘rock’ and ‘voice’ is the ordering, not ‘voice’ and ‘rock’.
In other words, the ‘permeation’ of the rock is a preceding process before
the suspended climax of perception, the cicada’s voice, is heard.
These features can emerge only from a word-for-word rendering of the
original. But once recognised, they become part of the larger thought
processes described earlier. How best to convey the sense of total stillness
in five syllables, and then a momentary hiatus? How to anchor the rather
generalised terms ‘permeate’ and ‘voice’ in a sensory immediacy? Is
there one cicada, or are there many – and which is the more effective?
The answers provided by the eight major translations conclude with
Ueda’s version and then my own:
In this hush profound
Into the very rocks it seeps –
The cicada sound.
(Britton)
quiet
into rock absorbing
cicada sounds
(Corman)
Lonely stillness –
a single cicada’s cry
sinking into stone
(Hamill)
How still it is here –
Stinging into the stones,
The locusts’ trill.
(Keene)
Would it be worthwhile taking Yuasa’s hint and risking a very free
adaptation of ‘Oku’ – something that evokes an emotional
landscape, as well as a geographical one? Would ‘The Narrow
Road to a Far-off Land’ do? On second thoughts, ‘Far-off Land’
could bring to mind a misleading fairy-tale dimension
(‘Somewhere over the rainbow…’). Probably better, after all, to
keep to ‘the Deep North’.
This kind of thought process, brought to bear on each word, phrase and
section as the travelogue unfolds, results in a continual flow of judgment,
both conscious and instinctive, about the most effective word, syntactic
pattern, rhythm, and tone of voice.
word-for-word translations
In addition to the support provided by the eight translations above, there
is a further resource: Makoto Ueda’s word-for-word versions of many of
the
haiku
that punctuate Bashō’s travelogue. A single example will show
how valuable even a literal translation of each word can be:
shizukasa
׀
ya
׀
iwa
׀
ni
׀
shimiiru
׀
semi
׀
no
׀
koe
stillness
׀
!
׀rock ׀
to
׀permeate ׀cicada׀
’s
׀
voice
Not only does this literal version indicate the order of the words and
images in the original, but it also gives important signals about their
vi
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Ah, tranquillity!
Penetrating the very rock,
a cicada’s voice.
(McCullough)
In seclusion, silence.
Shrilling into the mountain boulder,
The cicada’s rasp.
(Miner)
Quietness: seeping into the rocks, the cicada’s voice
(Sato)
In the utter silence
Of a temple,
A cicada’s voice alone
Penetrates the rocks.
(Yuasa)
the stillness –
seeping into the rocks
cicadas’ screech
(Ueda)
the utter silence …
cutting through the very stone
a cicada’s rasp
(Chilcott)
native speakers and resources
Whatever support other translations can give, however, there are
inevitably moments when some crux arises that can be resolved only by
appeal to a native Japanese speaker. Sometimes, the crux has to do with
connotation and resonance (‘is
a
closer in meaning to
b
or to
c?
or is it to
both
b
and
c
with a touch of
d?’).
Sometimes, it has to do with cultural
circumstances or positions that are very different from those in the
western world (for instance, are the many holy men that Bashō meets in
his journey best described as ‘monks’, ‘priests’, ‘high priests’, ‘abbots’,
‘bishops’, ‘archbishops’, or indeed none of the above?). But when such
questions have arisen in this translation, I have been able to avail myself
of the native and bi-lingual knowledge of Dr Mark Jewel, of the
University of Waseda, and of Masami Sato, of Hanazono University. To
both, I offer my sincerest thanks for the generosity of their help and
advice. I am grateful, also, to Kendon Stubbs, co-director of the Japanese
Text Initiative at the University of Virginia; the text of
Oku no hosomichi
presented here is used by permission of the JTI, Electronic Text Center
(http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/japanese). My thanks are due, too, to Peter
Goodman and Stone Bridge Press for their kind permission to reproduce
the map of Bashō’s journey contained in their
Bashō’s Narrow Road:
Spring & Autumn Passages,
trans. Hiroaki Sato, 1996.
conclusion
Whether this translation of Bashō’s
Oku no Hosimichi
has proved or
disproved the possibility of translating from a language of which one has
little or no knowledge, is for individual readers to determine. The best
judges, presumably, will be those readers who are totally bi-lingual, as
sensitive to every register and nuance of Japanese as they are of English.
For myself, I began drafting the translation entirely sceptical, believing it
would prove impossible. And yet it has emerged and is here. At the
beginning of this introduction, I quoted the words of one reviewer about
Christopher Logue’s version of the
Iliad:
‘it’s like learning of a deaf man
who prepared himself to conduct Stravinsky by watching
Fantasia’.
My
final position, I hope, may be of a partially hearing man who prepared
himself to conduct Stravinsky by discovering, at least, how to read a
musical score.
Tim Chilcott
July 2004
The st
rengths and limitations of all of these versions will be quickly
discernible. But it is worth noting that, unlike many translators, I have
adhered to the basic 5-7-5 syllabic count of the original for all the
haiku
in this translation, and have chosen to avoid capitalisation and most
punctuation marks. Such typographical signals can often seem intrusive,
directing response rather than allowing the suggestiveness and ambiguity
of the original free rein. Beginning a
haiku
with a capital letter and
ending it with a full stop suggests the perception is contained solely
within the words. But in truth, Bashō’s
haiku
begin before the first
syllable is uttered, just as they sound long after the seventeenth syllable
has been heard.
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