BUSON - hatsuyuki hatsu yuki snow

http://worldkigodatabase.blogspot.jp/2005/06/first-snow-hatsuyuki.html

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初雪や水仙の葉のたわむ迄　
hatsuyuki ya suisen no ha no tawamu made

The first snow,
Just enough to bend
The leaves of the daffodils

Takase Studios
http://www.takase.com/Haiku/Haiku.htm

The very first snow!
Up to where the leaves of the
daffodils do bend.

- Tr. James Karkoski - fb 2016 -


. Matsuo Basho　松尾芭蕉 .

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. Yosa Buson 与謝蕪村 in Edo .

初雪の底をたたけば竹の月
hatsu yuki no soko o tatakeba take no tsuki

Once the first snow
runs to the bottom of itself....
moon over bamboo.

'Soko o tataku" is an idiom that means "to run out of something that is within a container." It literally means "to hit the bottom of".
"Ba"'is a conjunctive particle that indicates an hypothetical situation, 'if...., when...., once....'

It's hard to imagine that there is another poet in any other language who has been able to manipulate time and space like Buson does in many of his haiku. In this haiku he has packed the past, the present and the future all into one. The first snow is falling and he talks about what the future will be after it by remember something in the past. I moved the last syllable of the first line to the second to keep the integrity of the line length together.
- Tr. James Karkoski - fb 2016 -

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