DoubleSpeak Staff

on translating Masajo Suzuki

Masajo Suzuki’s haiku describes her impossible affair with a married man. As their love is forbidden, they contemplate death in their pursuit of an authentic life in the middle of a meadow lit by fireflies. Our translations, in turn, sought to capture the intense romanticism and desperation imbued in the poem. In the Korean version, for example, the suffix 였었지 was selected as it imparts a sense of strained remembrance, of one looking back at something that will never come back. Similarly, in choosing a word for “whisper,” the Spanish translation landed on susurrar due to its layered meaning of “whisper, murmur, or sigh” — all actions that invoke a sort of longing or want. The first line of the Chinese translation included a Chinese idiom or chengyu, lending a slightly more romantic tone to the poem.

Haikus are an aesthetic art form, one predicated on perfect rhythm and capturing moments of intense beauty and pain. It was hence important to translate it in a way that would appeal to the readers’ senses but also convey the whispering and gentle nature of the night and lovers’ conversations. This led to decisions such as the selection of the Italian word insieme (“together”) instead of con me (“with me”) since the former has a nicer sound and echoes the preceding words andare and morire. Such questions of sonority particularly surfaced when translating the word for “firefly.” Both luciole (French) and candelilla (Spanish) were chosen due to their soft mouthfeel and ability to invoke a strong connotation of light. In the Dutch translation, the diminutive glimwormpjes was chosen over glimwormen to ensure that the reader was presented with an image of tiny, sparkling lights instead of a large firefly.

Haikus are distinguished by their 5-7-5 pattern: five syllables for the first line, seven for the second, and five for the third. Some languages were able to retain this form better than others. The French translation was able to retain the syllable counts by assuming the poem would be read in the traditional French style, where each syllable is enunciated. The English version also maintained the traditional Haiku structure. On the other hand, other translations, such as the Spanish one, decided to forgo the 5-7-5 pattern in order to avoid enjambment and ensure that each line conveyed a separate thought.

Furthermore, the poem is imbued with passivity, further heightening the soft despair of the poetic voice. The first line, “死なうかと,” is a phonetically archaic version of the Japanese “shall we?” form with the と at the end implying that it is being said to another person. Certain versions such as the French and Korean translation retained this passivity by recognizing that the “we” is implied by the 같이 (“together”) in the first line. Other translations, however, decided to write in a more active tone to avoid an abundance of syllables and to emulate the directness of a conversation between two lovers. For example, the Italian version settled on andiamo (“we go”) over vorresti (“would you like to”) or dovremo (“shall we”) because the latter choices are too distant and polite.

Through specific decisions related to diction and rhythm, we hope that our translations evoke the same painful longing that only forbidden love can bring.