beauty of a Spring dawn. Now Buson is pleased to introduce the night of the Spring which should be beautiful without questioning, since it lies between those two beautiful things, the eve and the dawn; and we are thrice glad with this Buson’s Hokku.
I have quite an interest in the pages of English translation or free rendering of our Japanese poetry, because I learn from them the point of the Western choice of the subjects, and where the strength or weakness of the English mind lies in poetical writing; take the following Hokku poem with the translation by Edwin Arnold and Miss Walsh:
“Asagawo ni
Tsurube torarete
Morai mizu.”
(“The morning-glory
Her leaves and bells has bound
My bucket handle round.
I could not break the bands
Of these soft hands.
The bucket and the well to her left,
‘Let me some water, for I come bereft.’ ”)
(“All round the rope a morning glory clings;
How can I break its beauty’s dainty spell?
I beg for water from a neighbour’s well.”)
With due respect to these translators, I ask myself why the English mind must spend so much ink while we Japanese are well satisfied with the following:
