Plate atlas The Map of Untranslatability

Atlas / Plate 08

Plate 08 · from Japanese

古池や蛙飛び込む水の音

The pond, the frog, and the sound can be said in any language. The cutting word や cannot. A dash is a pause, not a kireji.

Matsuo Bashō. The usual printed form of the poem. Small manuscript variants exist in the verb’s spelling; the cut, や, is the stable problem.

Where the line breaks

JAParts
古池Old pond
やKireji
蛙飛び込むFrog enters
水の音Sound of water
JASource古池や蛙飛び込む水の音
古池Source
やSource
蛙飛び込むSource
水の音Source
EN English Gloss for this plate old pond — a frog jumps in — the sound of water
old pond Arrives
— Breaks Mechanism mismatch
a frog jumps in Arrives
the sound of water Arrives

Gloss for this plate. A structural gloss, not a quotation from a named translator. Published English versions differ. They share the problem this gloss isolates.

DE German Gloss for this plate alter Teich — ein Frosch springt hinein — das Geräusch des Wassers
alter Teich Arrives
— Breaks Mechanism mismatch
ein Frosch springt hinein Arrives
das Geräusch des Wassers Arrives

Gloss for this plate. A structural gloss for this plate, not a published translation.

FR French Gloss for this plate vieux étang — une grenouille saute — le bruit de l’eau
vieux étang Arrives
— Breaks Mechanism mismatch
une grenouille saute Arrives
le bruit de l’eau Arrives

Gloss for this plate. A structural gloss for this plate, not a published translation.

ZH Chinese Gloss for this plate 古池 — 蛙跳入 — 水声
古池 Arrives
— Breaks Mechanism mismatch
蛙跳入 Arrives
水声 Arrives

Gloss for this plate. A structural gloss. The characters 古池 are readable to a Chinese reader as “old pond,” which is a partial head start the European glosses do not have. や still has no character.

Text alternative

English “old pond — a frog jumps in — the sound of water” (gloss for this plate): breaks: mechanism mismatch. German “alter Teich — ein Frosch springt hinein — das Geräusch des Wassers” (gloss for this plate): breaks: mechanism mismatch. French “vieux étang — une grenouille saute — le bruit de l’eau” (gloss for this plate): breaks: mechanism mismatch. Chinese “古池 — 蛙跳入 — 水声” (gloss for this plate): breaks: mechanism mismatch.

古池 Old pond

A noun phrase, the scene. 古 is old, 池 is pond. It is also the seasonal and spatial ground of the poem.

What happens to “古池” in each lane
LaneFormStatusBreakWhat happens
English old pond Arrives — The image arrives as a phrase.
German alter Teich Arrives — The image arrives.
French vieux étang Arrives — The image arrives.
Chinese 古池 Arrives — The same characters name the pond.

や Kireji

A cutting word. It marks a cut and a pause inside the hokku. It has no lexical translation. Its work is positional and rhythmic.

What happens to “や” in each lane
LaneFormStatusBreakWhat happens
English — Breaks Mechanism mismatch A dash marks a pause. It is not a cutting word with a fixed place in the phrase. English has no kireji.
German — Breaks Mechanism mismatch Punctuation stands where や stood.
French — Breaks Mechanism mismatch Punctuation stands where や stood.
Chinese — Breaks Mechanism mismatch Classical Chinese has caesuras. It does not have this kireji.

蛙飛び込む Frog enters

蛙, frog, and 飛び込む, to jump in. An event, after the cut.

What happens to “蛙飛び込む” in each lane
LaneFormStatusBreakWhat happens
English a frog jumps in Arrives — The event arrives.
German ein Frosch springt hinein Arrives — The event arrives.
French une grenouille saute Arrives — The event arrives.
Chinese 蛙跳入 Arrives — The event can be said. 跳入 is a gloss of 飛び込む, not the same verb.

水の音 Sound of water

水の音: the sound of water, named, not mimicked. の links water to sound. There is no splash-word.

What happens to “水の音” in each lane
LaneFormStatusBreakWhat happens
English the sound of water Arrives — The sound is named, as in the Japanese. No splash has to be invented.
German das Geräusch des Wassers Arrives — The sound is named.
French le bruit de l’eau Arrives — The sound is named.
Chinese 水声 Arrives — The sound is named.

The joint

The poem is four pieces of work, and only one of them is famous for being impossible. 古池, the old pond. 蛙飛び込む, a frog jumps in. 水の音, the sound of water, named rather than barked out as an onomatopoeia. Those three can be said in English, German, French, or Chinese. People have said them, in many published versions. This plate does not crown one of those versions. It isolates the joint.

や is a kireji, a cutting word. It does not mean “ah,” though translators sometimes pad it with an interjection. It cuts. The pond is on one side of the cut, the jump and the sound on the other, and the cut is what makes them face each other. A dash, a colon, or a line break is the usual substitute. Each of those is a pause. None of them is a member of a small class of cutting words with a traditional place in a seventeen-sound phrase.

Chinese shares the characters 古池, so the first image is halfway home before translation begins. The cut is not. That is the useful contrast. Shared writing carries the pond. It does not carry the particle.

Why this break matters to a reader

A reader of a dashed English haiku still gets the sequence: stillness, a jump, a sound. What they do not get is a word whose only job is the cut, heard as a word by a reader who knows the instrument. The loss matters if the poem is the cut, the juxtaposition, and not only the frog. The frog, as an image, is fine. The frog was never the hard part.