Comparing the Narrow Road
Matt Nelson

(Oku no Hosomichi) is a travel tale written by Matsuo Basho. Like many foreign works, the only way to understand the work as perfectly as the author intended is to read it in its native language. However, translations abound for this work for those people who do not have the capability of reading Japanese.

Translations are a source of error and can be a loss of a works poetic beauty. Therefore, one should read the best translation available. In the case of Oku no Hosomichi, the best translation is one which carries the fullest meaning of the work while maintaining the poetic sense of the original Japanese writing. I have read and compared five translations of the story aside from the one read in class, and have decided to compare the one from class, The Narrow Road to the Interior translated by Helen Craig McCullough, to the translation I found to be my favorite, Haiku Journey: Basho's Narrow Road to a Far Province translated by Dorothy Britton.
I have divided the section I am comparing into four parts based on the Britton translation. The first of these parts is the description of Sakata Harbor through the setting of the sun. In the first line of this segment one can already tell that the translation by Britton is much more poetic than McCullough's. Although at this point the two offer no more information, the power of the image is drastically different between the two. Britton uses the word "Countless" and the phrase "my heart quickened" where McCullough uses "innumerable" and "set my heart on" (1. 622)(2.). McCullough's choices lend a sense of factual information being pushed onto the reader while Britton's language conveys powerful emotion that pulls the reader into the story. A great example of the difference exists in the description of the location of Sakata Harbor. McCullough creates a separate sentence for this purpose: "It was a journey of ten leagues northeast from Sakata across mountains and along sandy beaches" (1. 622). Britton brilliantly blends the description into the same sentence which describes Basho's heart being quickened upon the prospect of visiting Kisakata, "the celebrated lagoon about twenty-four miles northeast of Sakata Harbor" (2.). This example not only illustrates Britton's ability to blend imagery, but also the translation of the distance to miles rather than leagues allows factual information to be more understandable to the common reader. In the last part of this section, Britton creates the travel to Sakata much more vividly than McCullough. In fact, the first time I read McCullough's translation, I did not even realize the travel had taken place. McCullough seems to incorporate the actual travel from Basho's writings into a description of how far away Sakata is. Britton's use of the words "trudging" and "along" truly express a feeling of travel (2.).

Once they get to Sakata, the sun sets. This image was totally omitted from McCullough's translation.
The second section goes from the wind blowing through waiting out the storm in the fisherman's shed. Again, Britton pleases the senses with her imagery in the description of the "driving rain" and the fact that "we could no longer see Mount Chokai." (2.). Britton pulls the reader into the story, making him a part of what is going on. McCullough pours out her usual batch of facts, "A wind from the seas stirred the white sand early in the afternoon, and Mount Chokai disappeared behind misting rain." (1. 622).There really is a difference here, right? When I read this next part in McCullough's translation I was utterly confounded as to what she meant. I believe I was mainly thrown off by her decision to include in parenthesis the phrases "Groping in the dark" and "the view in the rain exceptional too." (1. 622). She does this occasionally and I don't understand her reason for dragging the reader out of the story in this manner. Britton sprays out a soft journey of "fascination" and intrigue as the characters make their way through the dark "imagining the beauties that lay before" them (2.). In the final line here, we have the usual juxtaposition of their diction. The rain "ceases" for Britton while McCullough's rain "ends" (1. 622)(2.).

The beginning of this next part is the only section which I feel has equal poetic value for both translators. They use similar soft diction to describe the sun rising. Britton with her sun "shining brilliantly" is equal to McCullough's "bright morning sun" in my opinion (1. 622) (2.). McCullough’s "bright" moment, however, does not last long. In the very next line we have her usual facts of where the poet "lived for three years" (1. 622). Britton elaborates on this, and in fact creates an image missing from McCullough's work that this was where "the poet-priest Noin had spent his three-year retreat" (2.). Britton finds an "ancient cherry tree," telling us this tree has a history. It is ancient. It has status with the ancients (2.). McCullough tells us that this tree is "old" (1. 622). Wow. Now this next part was handled very well by Britton. From her we get a description of what exactly Matsuo was alluding to in the poetry of Saigyo. She tells us that the "reflections in the water" are what the haiku talks about (2.). She also includes the actual haiku in the text. Reading McCullough's take, one could not even be sure if this was a piece of poetry Basho is talking about without reading the footnotes.

Finally we reach the "the tree" which was "a living monument to the poet" (2.). This "living monument" is a mere "memento" to McCullough (1. 622) (2.). The only poetic difference in this last leg are Britton's words "on the edge of the lagoon" and "imperial tomb" compared to McCullough's plain old "tomb" that is "near the water's edge" (1. 622) (2.). The rest of this information about the Empress Jingu must have been presented in a very factual format because neither translator found any imagery to extract from it.

In all, I must say that Britton's work is not only more enjoyable than McCullough's but it is more complete. McCullough cuts the Japanese story into little black and white blocks of information, sometimes filling these blocks with other blocks. The blocks are put together in strands to form this story. Britton molds the story from Japanese into English, keeping it smooth and equally colorful. Britton's diction and figurative language must certainly be more like the poetry of Basho than McCullough's "old" trees and missing chunks (1. 622).

There are certainly worse translations of this out there, and this is merely one person's opinion. Interpretation of language, like translation, is variable from person to person. It is therefore very likely that some people will prefer one version to another.

Works Cited

Basho, Matsuo. The Narrow Road of the Interior. Translated by Helen Craig McCullough. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Volume D. 2nd edition. NY: W.W. Norton and Co., 2002. Page 622.

"Station 32 – Kisagata – Britton translation." Basho's World. May 09, 2002. <http://www.uoregon.edu/~kohl/basho/32-kisagata/trans-britton.html>

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