From the generator room on the HMCS Haida.

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My translation Man'yōshū 2.196

My translation of Man'yōshū 2.131

Four more translations from the Man'yōshū

Really excited to be part of the first issue of Christopher's magazine. I have seven new translations from the Man'yōshū here:

Four poems I translated from the Man'yōshū

. Before this day,.did the passing of the year.in Spring’s swollen bloom.and the first yellow of Fall.lead us always further back.on sighting the sea.

. and our skiffs in line. We row in Wopu Bay,.as mist slides by,.to Lady’s Taru’s.where wisteria waves remain. And as the shore clears.the white water roars. But now our longing grows. .

Man'yōshū 19.4187:. Of one mind are my friends,.my princes,.as like cedar shadows.lie dark their heavy hearts—.In this seeing.should your spirits lighten.and out-send this sorrow?:. On the sea,.our oars are locked on side. .

Man'yōshū 14.3378:. If I pulled you smoothly.like a vine.from Opoya field.on the road to Irima.don’t break up with me. This tanka isn't very good, but 'to pull' 'to be smooth (slippery)' and 'to break up' all share the same meanings in modern English and 7th/8th century Japanese.

A translation of three poems by Prince Takechi written on the sudden death of his sister-lover Princess Tochi. Man'yōshū 156-158, I forget which volume.

Spring sprouts willowing branches.but what in this scene.bends the mind back.to view the wide avenues’ past. Rough translation of Man'yōshū 19.4142.

Last night I had a very long and somewhat coherent dream which started as like Alchemical Science Fiction but just kept progressing until it included a visit to the Garden of Eden:

Minor correction, Purchas does mention potentialy normal sized Houri earlier in the text, so it seems possible that one could have both. There is no mention of the men being any larger than normal, unlike in the hadith collected by Bukhari where men are upscaled to 60 cubits.

Instead of multiple wives, early modern Englishmen believed that Muslims expected one giant wife in paradise. Samuel Purchas, 1617: "he which readeth [the Qur'an] a thousand times in his life shall have a woman in Paradise, whose eye-browes shall be as large as the Raine-bow".

Roughly based on Man'yōshū 2.101.