Two Poems about War—Yosano Akiko (1878-1942)
I promised these translations over two years ago in the introduction to my translation of three poems from Yosano’s Bara to Hanako collection. The juxtaposition displays a political evolution that is also a decay of the poet’s literary powers. Yosano was, for most of her life, a leftist and feminist poet best known for her antiwar poem “You Must Not Die” (“Kimi shinitamau koto nakare,” 『君死にたまふことなかれ』 in the orthography of the time) and her collection of feminist erotic poetry Tangled Hair (みだれ髪 Midaregami). Late in life she abruptly went down the 1930s Japanese equivalent of the rightist Facebook boomer pipeline. The result was “Citizens of Japan, a Morning Song” (“Nihon kokumin, asa no uta,” 『日本の国民、朝の歌 』), twenty highly mannered, formally controlled lines of cliché-storm edgy fascist garbage extolling the virtues of blowing yourself up and firing machine guns at Chinese civilians.
My translations of “You Must Not Die” (1904) and “Citizens of Japan, a Morning Song” (1932) follow. I’m electing to put them under a Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license. Anybody may copy, distribute, display, perform, and make derivative works and remixes based on these translations only if they attribute the translation to both Yosano Akiko and me. Anybody may distribute derivative works under a license not more restrictive than this license.
You Must Not Die
O little brother, for whom I cry,
You must not die!
Last-born, with a special measure of our parents’ love,
Yet our parents gave you a sword
And taught you—what?
To kill, and kill, and then to die?
Was it for this that they raised you to twenty-four?
As proud proprietor now of the Sakai store,
A local notable,
And inheritor of our parents’ name,
You must not die!
What does it matter to you,
A merchant inheritor,
Whether or not Port Arthur falls?
You should know by now that that is not our family’s way.
You must not die!
His Majesty the Emperor does not himself
Go into battle;
He commands other men to shed other men’s blood,
As is the way of beasts.
He tells us death is a glory to mortal men.
If his august heart holds such deep compassion,
How could he think this?
O little brother, there in battle,
You must not die!
Our mother lags behind our father
In life’s long autumn;
It pains me to see her wail for you.
While His Majesty does well for himself,
Our mother’s white hair grows.
In the shadow of the shop curtain
Your delicate young bride hunches over and weeps.
Have you forgotten? Do you remember?
You were together only ten months;
Think on what that does to a maiden’s heart.
There is only one of you, irreplaceable.
Once and for all I implore you,
You must not die!
❦
Citizens of Japan, a Morning Song
O the staunchness of the Emperor’s Glorious Reign™! Wake up, human hearts!
It’s a world ablaze with a sense of responsibility—a world with just one goal: “Sincerity”!
Cut to pieces the vain mouth-flapping! Smash the dreams of compromise (more like cuck-promise)!
Know how to go on the right track—charge into a hundred hardships!
One’s body is just the one soldier, but…! When you grasp the destroying gun
You enter into a dance with the barbed wire entanglements! That body is strewn like powder!
One’s body is just the one field officer, but…! Don’t be taken in by the enemy’s mercy!
Your body scatters, Nobler Than A Flower™! You can leverage A Samurai’s Honor™!
And it’s not just those with you! There are like-minded patriots
Wherever the Imperial Japanese Army goes! North, south, rise up, gird your loins!
Indeed, I’m just one good example of this—we, too, The Women Behind The Men With The Guns™— [lit. “we of the home front”]
Each one of us is zealous for the work we have to do! I redouble my very own courage!
Citizens who aren’t the troops—we’re letting out blood from our sharpened hearts!
Bit by bit, holding onto our lives—unstintingly devoted to our country!
For example, my song right here—holding a destroying gun,
Leaning into the barbed wire—and opening fire! May it share in that feeling!
A helpless woman like me, too—I feel this way!
Not to mention what surpassing excels it all—citizens who succeed to The Glorious Ways Of Our Ancestors™!
O the staunchness of the Emperor’s Glorious Reign™! Wake up, human hearts!
It’s a world ablaze with a sense of responsibility—a world with just one goal: “Sincerity”!