Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2020 February 19

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February 19

Ja -> en poem tranlation

Translation of poem at top?

Can anyone give me a traslation of the poem at the top of this illustration? I may use for the shoji article. HLHJ (talk)

Can you provide a text for the actual poem itself like is done here? Some of the characters in the image are easy to make out, but many aren't. If you can at least provide the name of the poem, then perhaps someone can track it down. I think it might be this, but can't say with any real certainty. You could also try asking at WT:JAPAN. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:20, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Marchjuly's tentative suggestion was right. The waka is, as conveniently stated at the top right, by Sakanoue no Korenori. It reads: みよし野の 山のしら雪 つもるらし ふるさとさむく なりまさるなり. Loosely and unpoetically: "White snow is deepening on Mount Yoshino, gradually the wind is becoming colder." (And therefore let's repair the shōji.) Tip of the hat to Mrs Hoary for her help with this; but she (i) isn't a specialist, and (ii) is distracted by work. So I suggest getting an additional, knowledgable opinion. As for the tremendously poetic translation in the page that Marchjuly points to, I'm not sure that the mi in mi-yoshino corresponds to 美 ("beautiful", whence "fair"), it might correspond to 御 (a meaningless honorific); and Mrs H and I are guessing that furusato means not "ancient place" but instead "here". We could be entirely wrong. Incidentally, the page Marchjuly points to gives the poem in romanized form but not Hepburn-romanized form (as required for en:Wikipedia); in Hepburn, it would be: miyoshino no / yama no shirayuki / tsumorurashi / Furusato samuku / narimasaru nari. -- Hoary (talk) 06:10, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Was that of any use, HLHJ? -- Hoary (talk) 23:44, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

That was very useful, Marchjuly, Hoary, and please also convey my thanks to your wife. I'm afraid I was also unable to read the handwriting; now it's transcribed, I can at least read the kanji! This is more than enough translation for my purposes (the shoji article); it's a poem about the chill of approaching winter. I've added the image and a general reference to the poem to the article (corrections and other edits welcome), and added the info you've given me on the poem to the file metadata on Commons. Here is a pretty templated version of the poem:

miyoshino no / yama no shirayuki / tsumorurashi / Furusato samuku / narimasaru nari (みよし野（の）の 山（やま）のしら雪（ゆき） つもるらし ふるさとさむく なりまさるなり)

Thanks again! HLHJ (talk) 00:45, 23 February 2020 (UTC)