Comments on: Japanese War Poem /blog/2004/08/japanese-war-poem/ But I fear more for Muninn... Thu, 16 May 2013 14:30:52 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.2 By: Stan Hannaford /blog/2004/08/japanese-war-poem/comment-page-1/#comment-264870 Sun, 15 Apr 2012 03:46:03 +0000 http://muninn.net/blog/2004/08/japanese-war-poem.html#comment-264870 Hello,

I have a small poem book hand made and written in I think Japanese.

My father brought it back from New Guinea at the end of WW2.

He told me it was part of the contents of a small wooden Japanese officers case,I have the case as well.

This case was in a bunker at Wewak PNG.

Can you please tell me where I can have the poetry translated to english?

Regards.

Stan Hannaford.

]]> By: Nick Kapur /blog/2004/08/japanese-war-poem/comment-page-1/#comment-9796 Mon, 05 Dec 2005 01:20:01 +0000 http://muninn.net/blog/2004/08/japanese-war-poem.html#comment-9796 My translation would be something like:

It was just that there was no way to return to you,
other than walking the bottom of the straits.

I would try to capture the explanatory sense of the のだ.

]]> By: Muninn /blog/2004/08/japanese-war-poem/comment-page-1/#comment-9795 Mon, 05 Dec 2005 00:17:09 +0000 http://muninn.net/blog/2004/08/japanese-war-poem.html#comment-9795 Ya, you might be right, especially since the title is addressed to the motherland.. in which case I would probably change the first line to “There was not way to return to you…”

I wouldn’t use “As for returning to you”

]]> By: Nick Kapur /blog/2004/08/japanese-war-poem/comment-page-1/#comment-9794 Mon, 05 Dec 2005 00:11:59 +0000 http://muninn.net/blog/2004/08/japanese-war-poem.html#comment-9794 In any case, I would think that you almost certainly have to translate 海峡 as “straits”, as it is clearly referring to the Korea and Tsushima straits, which are called 海峡 in Japanese.

]]> By: Nick Kapur /blog/2004/08/japanese-war-poem/comment-page-1/#comment-9793 Mon, 05 Dec 2005 00:04:54 +0000 http://muninn.net/blog/2004/08/japanese-war-poem.html#comment-9793 Your (and Sayaka’s) Japanese is obviously better than mine, and I know that adding には is common when addressing others, but in this case, couldn’t the に possibly also be indicating direction, and thus imply something like “As for returning to you, there was no other way, except to walk the bottom of the straits.” ? In this case, the “kimi” would be referring to the fatherland, and the speaker would be the soldier.

]]> By: Ism /blog/2004/08/japanese-war-poem/comment-page-1/#comment-7861 Mon, 15 Aug 2005 10:02:47 +0000 http://muninn.net/blog/2004/08/japanese-war-poem.html#comment-7861 Hello nice poem I found it by doing a search for Japanese war poems, maybe you can help Im trying to find poem from ww2 Japanese Pilot he talks about flying over the sea and bombing, any direction you can give?

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