New Books of Poetry

[imported_athos_uo]

I have found anthologies of poems by three poets of England. Yes, they are great: Shakespeare, Keats, E.Browning. I have once read the one of Shakespeare' sonett, that is XVIII."Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? " This is really beautiful and I like it.

The citated two lines on Herald from E.Brownings are also good. I have translated them into Japanese with particular passion.

But the world has not only poems in English but also those written in various languages and also beautiful as well. We Japanese have very beautiful poems, too.

I'd like to introduce some my favorite ones to you.

Two poem songs from "Tangled Hair" by Akiko Yosano(1878-1942):
<blockquote><hr>

Her hair flows through a comb in the darkst massiveness.
She is proud of her overwhelming beauty,
thriving in her most youthful spring of nineteen years old.

Why doesn't it let you feel yourself solitary,
that you won't hold me nor touch me on tender skin that contains blazing blood,
telling me only how to acquire the way to live.

[/ QUOTE ]
You might think that these poems are extremely short compared with those in English, but they have strict form that they should have total 31 syllables divided as 5-7-5-7-7(total 31). And one poem book of this kind includes several dozens of these short poem songs, and creates an organic world as well as Shakespeare's sonetts.

They are written in Japanese as follows:

Enjoy!

 

[Lady Katherine]

Thank you for the Japanese poem; it is beautiful!

The funny thing about getting poetry books in UO is that I have been selling them for several years around Valentines Day as part of a kit with a cake or cookies and a decorator tool. I have used Sonnet 116 along with Sonnet 18 for my books.

 

[imported_athos_uo]

<blockquote><hr>

Thank you for the Japanese poem; it is beautiful!

The funny thing about getting poetry books in UO is that I have been selling them for several years around Valentines Day as part of a kit with a cake or cookies and a decorator tool. I have used Sonnet 116 along with Sonnet 18 for my books.

[/ QUOTE ]
Thanks for your reply!

There are also players who like reading in UO in Japan, although numbers of them are not so many.

Here is another piece of jewel, by Michizou Tachihara(by Wikipedia). He wrote many sonett-like poems.

<blockquote><hr>

A temptation to slumbers

Slumber well, girls of sweet countenances
Slumber well, girls with your dark and tender hair braided
Around the candles which emit walnut-light on the side of your beds
Something merry is dwelling(powder snow falls on all over the world silently).

I will sing for ever
Over there outside of the dark window and here inside of the window,
And in your slumbers, then in the depth of your dreams
And then, over and over agein, I will sing for you.

Like lamplight
Like winds and like stars
My voice plays around here and there to its tones...

Then you see that white flowers bloom on apple trees,
That they bear small green fruits and those mellow in red in pleasing quickness
During a short time of your slumbers.

[/ QUOTE ]

--

Now I'd like to make a proposal and how about to place a poet in Zento, who sells poetry books of Japanese poets, in the future?

Of course, unless it requiires much resource of devs.

I thought of English translations of Japanese poems at first, but it will be difficult to find the translations that you can use without paying royalties, because it's not so long since Japanese literature are introduced into European and American culture. Those translations are supposedly still under the protection of license and royalty.

But you can use these old poems that are not protected under royalty lile Shakespeare, Keats or E. Browning freely without paying royalty if you use them in their original languages, in this case Japanese.

It would make me very happy, if devs cooperate with Japanese team in introducing also Japanese poems into the game in the future.