an atomized dream 噴霧的な夢

噴霧的な夢 あのしやれた登山電車で智恵子と二人、 ヴエズヴイオの噴火口をのぞきにいつた。 夢といふものは香料のやうに微粒的で 智恵子は二十代の噴霧で濃厚に私を包んだ。 ほそい竹筒のやうな望遠鏡の先からは ガスの火が噴射機のやうに吹き出てゐた。 その望遠鏡で見ると富士山がみえた。 お鉢の底に何か面白いことがあるやうで お鉢のまはりのスタンドに人が一ぱいゐた。 智恵子は富士山麓の秋の七草の花束を ヴエズヴイオの噴火口にふかく投げた。 智恵子はほのぼのと美しく清浄で しかもかぎりなき惑溺にみちてゐた。 あの山の水のやうに透明な女体を燃やして 私にもたれながら崩れる砂をふんで歩いた。 そこら一面がポムペイヤンの香りにむせた。 昨日までの私の全存在の異和感が消えて 午前五時の秋爽やかな山の小屋で目がさめた。 （1948年9月）

Atomized Dream  Chieko and I riding in one of those fancy  cable cars Up to see what’s left of Mt. Vesuvius A dream is like a fragrance, atomized And I am wrapped up In an atomized dream world Chieko in her twenties From out the end of my telescope Gas flames like on a jet plane Long and slender like bamboo I see Mt. Fuji out of my telescope Something strange happening in the crater And a crowd stood there watching Chieko threw in a bouquet --Mt Fuji’s seven flowers of autumn— Deep into Vesuvius’ crater Warm and so beautifully pure, Chieko Always unendingly caught up in fascination Her body burning, transparent like mountain water Leaning against me, walking on the gravel Suffocating in the Pompeian air The disharmony of yesterday gone in an instant Waking up at 5am in the crisp air of my mountain hut September 1948        Takamura Kotaro

 

Comments

[Sterling Price]

Sleeping in a mountain hut, dreaming of mountains. And his love, Chieko. Wonderful, dreamy lines, now Vesuvius, now Mt. Fuji, something strange happening in the crater, but what? The dream keeps the answer to itself. Chieko's body burning like mountain water! What an image! This poem ascends and decends like a double helix greased for speed. The suffocating Pompeian air gone in an instant, blown away by the crip mountain air of waking up. A poem to read and re-read. Maybe even to dream about if we're lucky.

[Arsen]

Lovely poem! Thanks for the translation.

[S. Peralta]

As with all your translations I love the way you meticulously choose your words. A perfect example is instead of "misty" you chose "atomized" with all its implications. Chieko being gone is a dream destroyed (atomized), but here she reappears like a fragrance (atomized) - to bring with her presence the peace of Mount Fuji to Kotaro's Vesuvius restlessness. Is the dream, her memory, enough to assuage his heartache? When he wakes up, suddenly at peace, it seems that for a moment it is enough. She throws a bouquet into the burning crater, she is "like mountain water" - and though she is gone, she will always what banishes the "disharmony of yesterday, gone in an instant". What a wonderful poem, what a wonderful translation, and what a wonderful close to the cycle.

[Jan Walls]

Ditto the above. And your rendering "the crater of" into "what remains of" Mt. Vesuvius also reinforces the focus on the chain of events that lead to the hole on the peak (the explosive puff of smoke like the atomized spray of perfume). The Japanese line suggests (to me, anyway) that "a dream is fragmentary like particles of sprayed perfume" or "like atomized perfume", but that might sound more analytical and less poetic. Love it the way it is. Congratulations yet again!

[peony]

Thank you all so much for responding to the poem and the translation. Interesting Jan, because I also was very taken with Kotaro's image as a dream being something "distilled" and maybe fragmented but sprayed like perfume. I have all my life thought of dreams as being things that "stain" a person with their mood. Like being stained blue or red...a friend is in Kathmandu and visited Pashupatinath. He described the visceral reaction he felt feeling the smoke from the funeral pyres kind of infuse him...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rahulfFozlQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPjDnIxJuIo&feature=fvw

I also remember being covered in billowing smoke there.... and for me dreams have that non-distilled, smokey quality. Like the way the Heian aristocrat infused their kimono in fragrant incense...

Kotaro's dreamworld, though, is different somehow in its being both fragmentary but also distilled...and I completely agree that the japanese line reads that way:

"a dream is fragmentary like particles of sprayed perfume" or "like atomized perfume"

A wonderful poem and a wonderful dream..