Thursday 11 March 2010

One haiku

Here's one of the most celebrated of Bashō's haiku (cut-and-pasted, of course; I know no more about Japanese pictograms than did Ezra Pound):
古池や 蛙飛込む 水の音
furuike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto

fu-ru-i-ke ya
ka-wa-zu to-bi-ko-mu
mi-zu no o-to


[Translated:
old pond . . .
a frog leaps in
water’s sound]
Or as I prefer to render it:
Oval of water:
A frog's muscular limb-jerk
And pond clucks its tongue.

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