Akiko Yosano (1878 - 1942)
1. This year (2015) is the 70th Anniversary of the end of the Second World War.
There are many commemorations in different countries for the anniversary.
I like to remember the pains and sufferings of wars with the following poem by Akiko Yosano (1878-1942).
I find the title of this poem especially touching: "Thou Shalt Not Die" (1904) (Chinese: "賜君莫死").
2. ("Akiko Yosano", Wikipedia):
"Akiko Yosano (与謝野 晶子 Yosano Akiko, Seiji: 與謝野 晶子, 7 December 1878 – 29 May 1942) was the pen-name of a Japanese author, poet, pioneering feminist, pacifist, and social reformer, active in the late Meiji period as well as the Taishō and early Shōwa periods of Japan. Her name at birth was Shō Hō (鳳 志よう Hō Shō). She is one of the most famous, and most controversial, post-classical woman poets of Japan."
"Yosano was born into a prosperous merchant family in Sakai, near Osaka. From the age of 11, she was the family member most responsible for running the family business, which produced and sold yokan, a type of confection. From early childhood, she was fond of reading literary works, and read widely in her father's extensive library. When she was a high school student, she began to subscribe to the poetry magazine Myōjō ("Bright Star"), and she became one of its most important contributors. Myōjō’s editor, Tekkan Yosano, taught her tanka poetry. They met when he came to Osaka and Sakai to deliver lectures and teach workshops."
"Although Tekkan had a common-law wife, Tekkan and Akiko fell in love. Tekkan eventually separated from his common-law wife, and the two poets started a new life together in the suburb of Tokyo. Tekkan and Akiko married in 1901. The couple would have two sons, Hikaru and Shigeru. Despite separation from his first wife, Tekkan remained actively involved with her."
3. (Beichman 2006):
"In the poem 'Thou Shalt Not Die', which was published in Myôjô in September, 1904, Akiko is bewailing the fact that her younger brother Sôshichi has been sent to fight in the Russo-Japanese War, and appealing to him not to let himself be killed. (It is not a tanka, but a shintaishi, written in alternating lines of five and seven syllables). During that war it was regarded as an unpatriotic poem, but after World War II it achieved great popularity as an anti-war poem. ..."
4. (Phillips 2012):
"Amongst Akiko’s most controversial poems was Kimi shinitamou koto nakare (‘Thou Shalt Not Die’), written for her younger brother during the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5. This poem was turned into a song, and used as an anti-war anthem during the long and violent siege of Port Arthur."
Singing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAzBAxXrg0U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om8b__CcudU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIpDoZV8z2E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LupdEIrQLC8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jqr5frW0kuM
Reading:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bz7XeJ7BIIU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxielI0wXIw
5. The Poem in English (Partial translation):
Source: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/o-my-brother-you-must-not-die/
O My Brother, You Must Not Die
by Akiko Yosano
O my young brother, I cry for you
Don't you understand you must not die!
You who were born the last of all
Command a special store of parents' love
Would parents place a blade in children's hands
Teaching them to murder other men
Teaching them to kill and then to die?
Have you so learned and grown to twenty-four?
O my brother, you must not die!
Could it be the Emperor His Grace
Exposeth not to jeopardy of war
But urgeth men to spilling human blood
And dying in the way of wild beasts,
Calling such death the path to glory?
If His Grace possesseth noble heart
What must be the thoughts that linger there?
6. The Poem in English (Full translation):
Source: http://pw1.netcom.com/~kyamazak/lit/_Jpoet/yosano_kimishini.htm
Note: Yosano Akiko (maiden name Hō) was born to a candy merchant called Surugaya. Her younger brother Chûzaburo, who inherited the family business fought in the Russo-Japanese War. This poem "Kimi shini tamau koto nakare (Prithee Do not Die)" is about her worries when he was in Lüshun (Port Arthur) which became a fierce battleground.
Prithee Do Not Die
(Lamenting my younger brother in combat as one of the troops besieged at Lüshun (Port Arthur))
by Akiko Yosano
Oh, younger brother mine, for thee I weep,
Prithee do not die,
For you were born the very last,
And our parents loved you all the more,
Yet they made thee grasp a blade in hand,
Taught thee kill a man you shall,
Kill a man, and die you too,
groomed you thus to age twenty-four.
Master now of the proud old house,
The merchant-house of Sakai(1), our town,
You must now carry on our name,
So I prithee, do not die,
Though Lüshun's(2) fortress should perish,
Should it be saved, what of that?
Thou ought know, it nowhere commands
On the familial codes(3) of our merchant house.
I prithee do not die,
The Heavenly-Prince does not himself
Lead by his own august presence his troop to battle.
For to command that men shed blood of men,
And die following the beastly path(4),
And tell us death be the glory of men,
If his Highness' heart be compassionate,
How could he truly think it so?
Oh young brother mine in battle,
I prithee you mustn't die.
Our mother who has lagged behind father
In the passing of the autumn years of life,
It sores me to watch her lament,
Deprived of son to guard the home,
And though she hears our Highness hale and safe,
Our mother's gray hair grows.
Stooping in the shade of the noren(5) she weeps,
The frail young wife of yours,
Or have you forgotten? Or do you think of her?
Think on her maidenly feeling,
Together ere ten months, then parted,
And there's none another the likes of you,
Oh once again I ask,
Prithee do not die.
— pub. in Myōjō Sept. 1904.
Notes:
1 Sakai is a merchant town with a rich history, which prospered by foreign trade in the age of Warring-States, and its merchants were proud and independent-minded. The famous tea ceremony master Sen-no-Rikyū (1522-1591) who committed harakiri was a Sakai merchant.
2 Lüshun(Port Arthur), pronounced "Ryojun" in Japanese, was a naval port for Russia's Eastern Fleet.
3 An "old family" often has something called kakun or lessons — do's and don'ts that are passed down generation to generation. The poetess is saying that since they are merchant family, dying to defend a castle is certainly not one of those lessons.
4 beastly path is a reference to a course of conduct without morality or discipline; In Buddhism, if your conduct in this life is poor, you are said to be relegated to chikushōdō "way of beasts" in the next life.
5 noren is the shop curtain, the drape of cloth hanging at the shop entrance. There is also such a curtain between the storefront and the back area.
7. The Poem in Japanese:
Source: http://pw1.netcom.com/~kyamazak/lit/_Jpoet/yosano_kimishini.htm
君死にたまふことなかれ
(旅順口包囲軍の中にある弟を歎きて)
与謝野晶子
あゝをとうとよ君を泣く
君死にたまふことなかれ
末に生れし君なれば
親のなさけはまさりしも
親は刃(やいば)をにぎらせて
人を殺せとをしへしや
人を殺して死ねよとて
二十四までをそだてしや
堺の街のあきびと(1)の
旧家をほこるあるじにて
親の名を継ぐ君なれば
君死にたまふことなかれ
旅順(2)の城はほろぶとも
ほろびずとても何事か
君知るべきやあきびとの
家のおきてに無かりけり
君死にたまふことなかれ
すめらみこと(3)は戦ひに
おほみづからは出でまさね
かたみ(4)に人の血を流し
獣の道に死ねよとは
死ぬるを人のほまれとは
大みこゝろ(5)の深ければ
もとよりいかで思(おぼ)されむ
あゝをとうとよ戦ひに
君死にたまふことなかれ
すぎにし秋を父ぎみに
おくれたまへる母ぎみは
なげきの中にいたましく
わが子を召され家を守(も)り
安しと聞ける大御代も
母のしら髪はまさりぬる
暖簾(のれん)のかげに伏して泣く
あえかに(6)わかき新妻を
君わするるや思へるや
十月(とつき)も添はでわかれたる
少女(おとめ)ごころを思ひみよ
この世ひとりの君ならで
あゝまた誰をたのむべき
君死にたまふことなかれ
－１９０４年『明星』９月号に掲載
注釈：
1 あきびと＝商人
2 旅順＝遼東半島南端にある軍港。 ロシアの東洋艦隊の基地で要塞が築かれていた。
3 すめらみこと＝天皇
4 かたみに＝たがいに
5 大みこゝろ＝天皇のこころ
6 あえかに＝かよわく
8. The Poem in Modern Chinese:
Source: http://www.douban.com/group/topic/21583620/
你不要死去
(为包围旅顺口军中的弟弟而悲叹)
与谢野晶子
(李 芒译)
啊，弟弟呀，我为你哭泣，
你不要死去！
你是咱家最小的弟弟，
双亲加倍地疼爱你。
双亲何曾教你紧握利刃，
为了杀人到前线去？
双亲把你养育成二十四岁，
哪里是为了你先杀别人后葬自己？
既然是这[土界]市①的商人世家——
值得自豪的主人②
你就必须传宗接代，
你不要死去！
旅顺城即便失陷，
或能保住，又有啥关系？
你当然不会晓得，
商人家规里并无这一条。
你不要死去，
天皇不会亲自参加战役。
皇恩浩荡，
岂能有这样的旨意——
让人们流血而死，
让人们死如禽兽，
还说什么
这就是荣誉。
啊，弟弟呀，
你不要在战争中死去。
去年秋季父亲逝世，
撇下母亲，余悲未息，
又痛心地送儿子应召开拔，
自己则孤苦零丁，独守四壁。
纵然是升平的圣代，
母亲的白发却日见多起。
你那年轻纤弱的新娘，
常常蜷伏在帘后哭泣。
你已然忘怀，抑或尚在思念，
新婚不满十月就凉了枕席。
要哀怜这少女的心啊，
她在世上依靠的只有你
只有你一个人呀，
你不要死去！
①[土界]市属于大阪府，位于大阪南部附近，为作者出生地。
②日本人以长子继承父业和财产，故作如此说。
References:
"Akiko Yosano", Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akiko_Yosano
(accessed 2015-08-29).
Beichman, Janine. 2006. "Thou Shalt Not Die: Yosano Akiko and the Russo-Japanese War". The Asiatic Society of Japan. December 11.
http://www.asjapan.org/web.php/lectures/2006/12
(accessed 2015-08-29).
Leahmama1. 2012. "Japanese Anti-War Poet". Japan Journal: food, books and thoughts on my life Blog. September 16.
https://leahinjapan.wordpress.com/tag/yosano-akiko/
(accessed 2015-08-29).
Phillips, Jeremy. 2012. "They died in 1942 -- 2: Akiko Yosano". The 1709 Blog. December 26.
http://the1709blog.blogspot.ca/2012/12/they-died-in-1942-2-akiko-yosano.html
(accessed 2015-08-29).
"與謝野晶子", Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia,
https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E8%88%87%E8%AC%9D%E9%87%8E%E6%99%B6%E5%AD%90
(accessed 2015-08-29).
"与谢野晶子", baike.baidu.com,
http://baike.baidu.com/view/299252.htm
(accessed 2015-08-29).
盧荻. 2015. " '你不要死' ——道德政治的背面". 盧荻：生活與知識博客. January 5.
http://kakafuka.mysinablog.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=6812135
(accessed 2015-08-29).
End.
