Sidestepping Translation Clunkers

Yosano Akiko’s tanka poems often end with a noun phrase, an image—beautiful in Japanese—that clunks in English. For example:

雪の箱根こえこし痩の都びとを掩ひの紅絹に梅ちりし国

Translated directly, this means something like: 

Snowy Hakone – coming over from – thinner Kyoto person – covered red silk – plum petals falling on – Country 

Akiko did not mean that ‘plum petals are falling on the country’. She meant something more like, “You’ve come to Kyoto to see me, all the way from snowy Hakone, the plum blossoms you brought are falling apart on the red silk you covered them with.” The word ‘country’ is an ethereal idea, evoking a snowy country as backdrop to the journey and the love affair. 

This tanka is about Akiko’s lover Tekkan, who has traveled from Tokyo to Kyoto to visit her. He is stressed for several reasons: His marriage is falling apart, the literary magazine he publishes is not making enough money to cover the bills, and the latest issue is banned by the government for featuring a nude line drawing on the cover. He stopped to buy flowers for her before boarding the train.

From snowy Hakone to Kyoto you came

Thin and tired

Plum blossoms you brought

Falling apart in their red silk cover

I imagine a snow globe through which this tired man is traveling. As the snow falls, I can see a train going over a mountain inside the little globe. He has a bouquet of flowers on his lap. The flowers are cold and thirsty. They begin to fall apart.  The red silk hints at his anticipation of a warm encounter later tonight. It is a romantic gesture, wrapped in a chilly reality.

My point is, Japanese and English are not only very different in terms of syntax but also in the order of ideas. With apologies to Akiko, as an amateur translator I will make changes in word order and even add or subtract words as necessary to communicate my understanding of her ideas to a new audience. I think she would understand.