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Colors

by Kukai (空海) (774-835)
translated by Joshua C. Frank

Colors, fragrant like the flowers,
Fade to ash in final hours,
Extinguished, gone, returning never.
No earthborn life can last forever.
Depart today from your dependence,
Across the summit of transcendence:
Just quell your lusts and quit your schemes
And drunkenness and lazy dreams.

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Original Japanese

いろは

いろはにほへと
ちりぬるを
わかよたれそ
つねならむ
うゐのおくやま
けふこえて
あさきゆめみし
ゑひもせす

Iroha

Iroha nihoheto
Chirinuru wo
Wakayo tareso
Tsune naramu
Uwino okuyama
Kefu koete
Asaki yume mishi
Wehimo sesu

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Translator’s Note

Kukai was a Buddhist monk and founded the esoteric Shingon school of Buddhism.  This poem encapsulates Buddhist ideas of impermanence and detachment from the world, though the same ideas have been expressed in the foundational texts of many religions and philosophies worldwide before and after Buddhism, including Christianity.

This poem uses every syllable in the classical Japanese language exactly once, which ultimately helped to standardize and popularize the syllabic alphabet still in use today; the poem was once the basis for Japanese alphabetical order and is still used in this way for itemizations, making it the most well-known classic Japanese poem.  Hence I’ve made sure to use every letter in English at least once.

Japanese poetry doesn’t use rhyme, but I’ve used rhyme in my translation because that’s more suitable for a didactic poem like this in English.

As a nod to the age of the poem, I’ve alliterated at least two stressed syllables in each line, one in each half-line, as was done in Anglo-Saxon poetry (such as Beowulf).  Anglo-Saxon verse didn’t rhyme or alliterate the last stressed syllable of a line, so this form is a hybrid.  If you’d like to learn more about alliterative verse, this is a good resource: https://alliteration.net/resources/

I’ve used modern spellings for all individual syllables in the romanization of the original Japanese text.

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Joshua C. Frank works in the field of statistics and lives in the American Heartland.  His poetry has also been published in Snakeskin, The Lyric, Sparks of Calliope, Westward Quarterly, New English Review, and many others, and his short fiction has been published in several journals as well.

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The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary.


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24 Responses

  1. Jeremiah Johnson

    Fascinating! Especially the bit about all the syllables in classical Japanese and the poem being a kind of primer for the language. Reminds me in a way of Rodge and Hammer’s “Do, Re, Mi” and it’s impact on music culture. That, and I like that final line – not only does it work acoustically, but “drunkenness and lazy dreams” are a big theme in general in Asian verse, right? 🙂

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Thank you, Jeremiah. Interesting bit about “Do, Re, Mi;” I’ve even seen that song appear in Japanese popular culture!

      It’s not just Asian verse that urges us to transcend “drunkenness and lazy dreams;” Stoic philosophy and Christian theology tell us the same, which speaks to the universality of the themes of the poem. That, as much as anything, was why I wanted to translate it in English.

      Reply
  2. Joseph S. Salemi

    What an amazing, beautiful, and elegantly simple piece of poetic composition! And yet, as the poet’s note makes clear, a great deal of complexity has gone into its production. And by using rhyme and alliteration, the poet combines Anglo-Saxon elements with the intricacy of the Japanese original, and presents to Anglophone readers a perfect blend of two cultures that shows deep respect for both.

    This is top-notch work.

    Reply
  3. Brian A. Yapko

    What wonderful work you have produced here, Josh, both in the thought you put into your translation and in the translation’s beauty. While I know no Japanese, your imagery feels imbued with authentic Japanese ideas, ideals and feelings. I appreciate your painstaking translation not just of words but of poetic concepts. It has certainly paid off.

    I’m particularly intrigued by your invoking stylistic elements of roughly contemporaneous Anglo-Saxon verse as a poetic nod to the century in which both are situated. Although there would have been no exchange of culture between Japan and pre-Norman England, it adds a layer of temporal depth. You successfully avoided a real risk of having this feel shoehorned into the piece as extrinsic to your setting: but the Anglo-Saxon methodology is obscure enough that it does not feel intrusive or violative of the Japanese form. In contrast, had this been a movie in which you included Gregorian chant to the soundtrack of a purely Japanese setting, the effect would not have worked. But your use is far more subtle and adds delight rather than distraction.

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Thank you Brian! My aim was to write what the original Japanese poet might have written if he had been a native speaker of modern English. I’m glad adding the bit of Anglo-Saxon-like alliteration added to the effect.

      Modern poets have used the full Anglo-Saxon style to evoke that time and give it an ancient feel; examples include C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien (like Victor Hugo, they’re best known for their novels, but they wrote plenty of poetry).

      Reply
  4. Margaret Coats

    SCP published an excellent translation of “Iroha” in 2020:

    https://classicalpoets.org/2020/12/27/the-iroha-poem-by-kukai-%e7%a9%ba%e6%b5%b7-774-835-translated-by-francesca-leader/

    Some of the above link may not appear in Japanese script, but I hope the link will nonetheless take the reader to Leader’s poem, for an instructive comparison with Joshua Frank’s.

    Josh’s adaptation is noticeably different from most other English renderings in choosing imperative mood and didactic tone for the latter half of the piece. His speaker thus uses omniscient third person in the earlier half, and direct address second person in the latter. Treatment of the second half contrasts with that of Leader and that of Masaki Mori (a translator with an approach both technical and thorough). In their versions, the speaker of the entire poem is one observer setting out in person to act on his observations. He does not issue instructions. As Mori suggests within his lengthy discussions, the lack of clear indicators could allow the second half of the poem to be spoken by “we” rather than “I.”

    This same situation allows Josh to choose his approach. He adds a nice feature suited to “Iroha” as a pangram, by using each letter of the English alphabet in his work. Alliteration somewhat similar to Anglo-Saxon practice does accord with the date of 1079 (way too late for Kukai) when “Iroha” surfaces in Japan. Traditional attribution to Kukai is not a problem, and Anglo-Saxon continued in use for a while in the Anglo-Norman period. Josh’s alliteration gives just a touch tending back to those times; I find it an excellent contemporary usage of the technique, apparent but not as insistent as the Anglo-Saxon can be.

    “Iroha” in Japanese is a four-line poem, while our published rendition by Leader used six lines, and Frank uses eight. That make each line by Frank a half-line of the Japanese, and thus his alliteration is not between half-lines, as in Anglo-Saxon, but within them, or one might say between quarter-lines. Still, it is lovely and not heavy.

    In my opinion, the rhymes render the poem heavy, at least in contrast to the Japanese, especially because there are eight lines doubling the Japanese four, and all rhymes except the last are double rhymes. But as you imply, Josh, the proper reading of this piece is as a didactic poem in English, with “transcendence” understood as the ideal of detachment from the world that is common to philosophies and religions worldwide. That is why I’m glad you use “Colors” as title, though the lines are quite empty of particular colors from which to escape. A careful and successful effort.

    For discussion of the Japanese and of possible translation, there is more information than anyone will want at

    https://japaneseparticlesmaster.xyz/iroha-poem/

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      I meant to have my comment be a reply to yours. See my reply below.

      Reply
  5. Linda Marie Hilton

    what a beautiful poem!!!!
    i have saved it in my stash of poems
    to use as prompts,
    thank you for sharing
    this with us.

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Thank you, Linda! I’m honored that this you find this one an inspiration.

      Reply
  6. Joshua C. Frank

    Thank you, Margaret, for your detailed analysis. I’m glad you like it.

    I saw Leader’s and Mori’s translations when I was researching this one, but there’s a lot of difference in understanding even among Japanese people about the meanings of each word (after all, the Japanese language has changed considerably since then), and my translation philosophy is different from theirs. Both have conveyed the basic ideas of the poem, but Mori’s translation doesn’t appear to be intended as poetry in its own right, and Leader seems to be afraid to break from Japanese poetic conventions (no rhyme, fixed syllable counts) to make it fully English. I aim to write what the original poet might have written if he were a native English speaker, just as I do with my translations from French, hence the title “Colors” (as opposed to keeping the Japanese title; many English translations of Japanese popular culture keep various things untranslated, a convention with which I disagree).

    The reason for the differences in person is because pronouns are generally left out in Japanese, as they’re usually implied by the context. I chose second person because the poem has a clear message for the reader: things don’t last, so detach from them. In Japanese, imperatives are often eschewed in favor of the equivalent of “let’s” (hence their advertisements say things like “Let’s drink Coca-Cola” instead of the imperative version used in English), but it seemed unnatural to render it into English in this way.

    I’m surprised to hear that it was four lines in the original; I’ve seen it many times in eight lines in Japanese as I’ve displayed it here, possibly to stay in keeping with the Japanese convention of alternating seven-syllable lines with five-syllable lines in various poetic forms (line 3 is an exception because there were 47 syllables in Classical Japanese; keeping perfect form would have required 48).

    Anyway, thank you for your attention to detail.

    Reply
  7. Drilon Bajrami

    A beautiful translation, Joshua. It’s always impressive when a translator can not only convey meaning but create art themselves by adding metre and rhyme to the work.

    I’ve also taken the time to read some articles from that poetry site you linked and while I use alliteration in my poetry, the concept of alliterative verse and the specifics, like alliterating the stresses and not simply repeating a consonant sound, like you did with “extinguished” and “returning”, have been greatly edifying. I’ll be sure to make use of this resource and try my hand at some alliterative verse at some point.

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Thank you, Drilon. I’m glad you like the poem, and that my use of alliteration has been edifying.

      Reply
  8. Adam Sedia

    The poem expresses a very Buddhist sentiment, and you do a beautiful job of bringing that out. I am particularly intrigued by your use of rhyme in the translation where it did not exist in the original. I think that actually might be a truer translation because it adheres to the target language’s tradition as the original did in Japanese.

    One of the things I find most admirable about Japanese culture is its preservation of tradition – with a poem like this remaining consistently in the canon for 13 centuries.

    Thank you for introducing this work with your own touch.

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Thank you, Adam. I admire that about Japanese culture, too. By contrast, how many in the English-speaking world even know of the medieval epics? I also agree with you about rhyme; that’s why I included it.

      The interesting thing is that, while the sentiment comes from Kukai’s Buddhist background, it also seems very Christian, which is one reason I chose this poem to translate. I see the same sentiment expressed in Scripture, the writings of the saints, and the Christian spiritual classics, both Catholic and Protestant.

      Reply
  9. Sally Cook

    A sensitive rendering which catches the subtleties of what is in the original work. That’s not easy to do. Knowing no Japanese, still, I understand what was written in the original language. That is not an easy thing to do. Thank you for this.

    Reply
  10. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Josh, I think your translation is truly beautiful and an asset to the Western world of literature. I have read your notes on techniques and the comments section with interest. Your thoughtfulness and dedication concerning this painstaking task has inspired me to try one of my own… such is the power of your talent.

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Wow, Susan, that’s great to hear! I’m honored, both by the fact that you see it as “an asset to the Western world of literature” and that it’s inspired you to try one of your own. I can’t wait to read your translation!

      Reply
  11. Karen Darantière

    Thank you, Joshua for this seemingly simple yet in reality complex composition! It is truly a multifaceted gem. I appreciate your intertwining of Japanese and Anglo-Saxon verse, not so much because of a correspondence from a temporal perspective, but rather an intemporal one: all that is true and beautiful goes together. I also appreciate the philosophy you adopt for translating poetry, by aiming to write what the original poet might have written if he were a native English speaker.

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Thank you, Karen. That was well said: “all that is true and beautiful goes together.”

      Reply
  12. Daniel Kemer

    I thought the opening line quite well executed on many levels, not the least of which is figuring out a rhyme, and not a forced one at that. The final lines reminded me of a little book I came across many years ago in college, “The Gospel According to Zen.” Chaff and fruit, but worth the read– it went on to describe drunkenness as a state indistinguishable from enlightenment–quite the opposite tradition!

    Reply

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