Haiku 5: O snail, climb...

Here is today's haiku:

かたつぶりそろそろ登れ富士の山

And in romaji:

katatsuburi soro-soro nobore fuji no yama

And English: "O snail, climb Mt. Fuji, slowly, slowly!"

This is another haiku by Issa, and it is one of my favorites. I certainly feel like a snail climbing Mt. Fuji as I learn Japanese... slowly slowly. I had to change the word order in the translation: in the Japanese the "soro-soro nobore" そろそろ登れ is such a great sound-play, but the "slowly" and the "climb" do not echo each other like that in English, so instead of sound-play, I opted for the fun surprise of "slowly, slowly" at the end. And I suppose everything would benefit by being done even more slowly, right? One of my favorite kinds of meditation, for example, is the walking meditation, and the slower, the better, at least for me.

painting by Nishiyama Hoen

My vocabulary for today:

山
やま
"mountain"