Friday 30 November 2007

After Basho's Most Famous Lines

A still library.
A student opens a book -
the crack of its spine.

1 comment:

The Student said...

Basho wrote

Furuike ya, kawazu tobikomu, mizu no oto.

which Nobuyuki Yuasa, in his introduction to The Narrow Road to the Deep North translated as

Breaking the silence
Of an ancient pond,
A frog jumped into water -
A deep resonance.

and Lucien Stryk, more concisely,

Old pond,
leap-splash --
a frog.