Tuesday 31 May 2016

Onakatomi no Yoshinobu: "The deer which lives..."


The deer which lives
On the evergreen mountain
Where there are no autumn leaves
Can know the coming of autumn
Only by its own cry.


Tr. Arthur Waley. Onakatomi (921-991) was a nobleman of the middle Heian period. A remarkable and perfect poem, with the combination of simplicity and ever-expanding echoes that's sometimes found in classical Greek poetry.

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