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Idaho
12-11-2000, 17:10
I'm sure you all know this one well enough - but for any that don't it is worth knowing. Does anyone have the correct verse structure?

It's the one about the unsinging bird and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Ieyasu Tokugawa and Oda Nobunaga.

Nobunaga says he will kill it
Hideyoshi says he will make it sing
Tokugawa says he will wait for it to sing

Anssi Hakkinen
12-12-2000, 04:59
Well, I didn't. But now I do. Thank you, Idaho-sama.

These Japanese folklore presentations always seem to show a preference toward Ieyasu, as if he had somehow unified Japan "better" than his two predecessors.

A painting, depicted in Turnbull's "The Samurai: A Military History", tells a different story though:

"The unifiers of Japan:

"Oda Nobunaga piles the rice; Toyotomi Hideyoshi kneads the dough; Tokugawa Ieyasu eats the cake."

http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

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"The right use of the sword is that it should subdue the barbarians while lying gleaming in its scabbard. If it leaves its sheath it cannot be said to be used rightly."
- Tokugawa Ieyasu: Legacy

Ieyasu
12-13-2000, 18:44
Another famous haiku that I thought was particularly wondrous:


Grassy knolls
Only the dreams of the Warriors
Remain

FwSeal
12-13-2000, 22:43
This isn't exactly a haiku, but I have always liked it quite a bit. It was composed by a certain Takemata Hideshige, who was defeated in battle by Shibata Katsuie. Before he commited suicide, he left the following:

Shall Ashura
subdue a man like me?
I shall be born again
and then I'll cut the head
off Katsuie...

Another good one is supposed to have been uttered by Ota Sukenaga (Dokan) when he was stabbed in his bath by assasins sent by his lord, Uesugi Sadamasa...

Had I not known
that I was dead
already
I would have mourned
my loss of life.

FwSeal
12-14-2000, 03:06
Ieyasu's selection of a Basho haiku made me think of a neat story about that famous poet. According to the story, Basho was out walking one day with one of his students of haiku. The latter composed a piece on the dragonflies they noted flying about in the field they were presently standing in.

'Red Dragonflies!
Take off their wings,
And they are pepper pods!'

At this, Basho shook his head and said that to do a real (and decent) haiku, it should be:

'Red pepper pods!
Add wings to them
and they are dragonflies!'

Word-san
12-14-2000, 05:46
Proper haiku fomat is 5-7-5, so although the ones you all have listed are certainly well-written, they lose the proper meter in translation, and thus don't sound like haiku anymore!

From the SPAMku archive http://pemtropics.mit.edu/~jcho/spam/ :

Buddha twists the key
The pink meat is enlightened
SPAM in golden woods

(written by by The Evolution Control Committee )

ShaiHulud
12-14-2000, 09:07
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Word-san:
[B]Proper haiku fomat is 5-7-5, so although the ones you all have listed are certainly well-written, they lose the proper meter in translation, and thus don't sound like haiku anymore!

Word! (see? It's both affirmation and a pun(a play on Words!)! I kill me!)



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Wind fells blossoms, rain
fells steel,yet bamboo bends and drinks

Ieyasu
12-14-2000, 11:18
LMAO

Nice ones, Seal... and thanks for the meters on haikus, Word.

Perhaps something in the translations get lost? When it comes to anything structured in writing, I am awful. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Word-san
12-14-2000, 16:21
Yo, Shai -- Word up.

Anssi Hakkinen
12-14-2000, 22:40
As mentioned in previous posts, some of the death poems (jisei) in (yourshogundirectory)\loc\eng\Death Poems.txt are very neat (even if all of them aren't exactly haikus, or even poems). I own a collection of tanka poems, but it's a Finnish translation, so sharing them with you is pretty much impossible.

Does anyone (Seal-Kô? Anyone at all?) happen to have the English translation of Zen master Sen no Rikyû's Japanese jisei? It's one of my all-time favourites...

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"The right use of the sword is that it should subdue the barbarians while lying gleaming in its scabbard. If it leaves its sheath it cannot be said to be used rightly."
- Tokugawa Ieyasu: Legacy

Minagawa Daimon
01-19-2001, 07:36
Jusshi reisho

"In blossom today, then scattered.
Life is so like a delicate flower.
How can one expect the fragrance
To last forever?"

---Minagawa Daimon

The Black Ship
01-19-2001, 09:49
There once was a girl from Nantucket...

Oops..wrong format http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

solypsist
01-19-2001, 10:25
I spent a quiet evening going through all the poetry files on my STW disk. They're very nice, and some are more open-ended than others in ideology.
One of my favorite poems is in the Hagakure:

Under the deep snows in the last village
Last night a single branch of plum blossomed

Minagawa Daimon
01-20-2001, 22:28
a very good one

Tenchimuyo
01-21-2001, 23:28
These are quiet interesting.

Minagawa Daimon
01-22-2001, 09:18
even tragic...

Draksen
02-09-2001, 15:20
An old samurai haiku :
http://www.geocities.com/draksen/haiku.jpg

futatsu ni kasanete, yottsu ni kiru.

("if layered in two parts, cut in four parts", or something like this... sorry for my translation)

Meaning : if you find a man "on" your wife (2 parts), cut them (with your katana) in four parts... nice, no?



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http://www.geocities.com/draksen/doragon.jpg
Kazamatsuri clan
www.geocities.com/draksen (http://www.geocities.com/draksen)

Draksen
02-09-2001, 20:00
Here is a better font for this haiku :

http://www.geocities.com/draksen/haiku2.jpg

Omoshiroi ne.

Dewa mata


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http://www.geocities.com/draksen/doragon.jpg
Kazamatsuri clan
www.geocities.com/draksen (http://www.geocities.com/draksen)