[Japan] Appreciation of the love poem "Lemon Elegy" by Kotaro Takamura
[Japan] Kotaro Takamura
Lying on the painful and pale death bed,
You are craving lemon juice so much.
When I hand a lemon to you,
you bite it with your clean teeth,
and a topaz-colored aroma emerges.
Those few drops of lemonade, like fairy dew,
quickly restore your normal consciousness.
Your clear and bright eyes smiled slightly,
I felt your heat from the palm of my hand.
Although the storm is ringing in your throat,
But at this dying moment of life,
My Chieko has regained her vitality,
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Pour your life's love into your final farewell gift.
In an instant,
you take a deep breath like the one you took on the top of a mountain,
and the whole machine suddenly stops.
Today, under the cherry blossoms in front of your memory,
Let me offer you a bright lemon again.
(Translated by Luo Xingdian)
Kotaro Takamura (1883-1956), a romantic poet and sculptor, was born in Tokyo. The main member of the "Star Party". Studying in Europe and the United States from 1906 to 1910 enabled him to liberate himself from traditional Japanese ethics and publish some poems in the aesthetic and decadent style. Later, in tune with the idealism of the "White Birch School", he began to lean toward "humanitarian literature" and his poetic style was bright and enthusiastic. He is the author of "Daocheng", "Chieko Copy", "Typical", and "The Complete Works of Kotaro Takamura". Among them, the collection of poems "Chieko Copy" (1941), which mourns the death of his wife, is full of sadness and affection, and is famous in the poetry world for its poignant lyricism. "Lemon Elegy" is selected from this collection of poems.
In 1938, the poet's beloved wife Chieko Naganuma passed away. The following year, the author published this poem in memory of her. "Lying on the painful and pale death bed, you are so eager for lemon juice." Here, the author reproduces the scene of the past. Since there is no way to make the dying wife recover, the husband, as a survivor, can only try his best to satisfy his expectations and wishes, thereby giving comfort to his critically ill wife. The husband speculated that his wife was probably thirsty and wanted to moisten her burnt throat and lips with "lemonade like fairy dew". It contains the bitter and poignant couple's affection.
The comfort of warm ironing. This kind of comfort only flashed in the moment before death, and Chieko suddenly returned to normal consciousness. Qingjie's eyes were filled with smiles, and a healthy heat was transmitted from the held hand into Kotaro's sad heart. It turns into a heart-to-heart emotional communication.
"Despite the storm in your throat, at this critical moment of life, my Chieko regained her vitality and devoted her life's love to her final farewell gift." This is as an example. The sad confirmation of the author of Survivor is similar to the normal smile of the crazy mother in "The Book of Ghosts" published in his later years by Akutagawa Ryunosuke in the moments before his death. The author recognized that this was a sign of his wife's return to life, and the moment of vitality was filled with an atmosphere of breathless depression.
"Lemon Elegy" is the author's requiem for his deceased wife and also the author's atonement poem. The literal translation of the original text of "Chieko is back to life" is "Chieko is back to the original Chieko." The author feels that his wife has changed from an intelligent woman to a severe schizophrenic, "I sincerely feel a kind of hatred and self-examination." (Miyoshi Yukio) Although there are different opinions on the reasons for Chieko's illness, the author once said in "The Mansion of the Stray Dogs" "In the poem, it says: "I turned my lovely wife into a madman," which means that I betrayed the ethics of tutoring and chose the same love journey as Chieko. This theme of self-blame obviously extends into "Lemon Elegy". The "topaz-colored aroma" of lemonade is seen as an illustration of the poet's prayer for atonement. Yasuhiko Ando pointed out: "For the death of his lover Chieko, Kotaro's mourning was painful and touching."
The author has always loved Chieko, and as a carrier of grief for the deceased, he presented it again to the portrait. Sparkling lemon. He recounted: "When I met Chieko, her pure love purified my soul and rescued me from my previous decadent life. Chieko's death caused a strong mental blow to me, and I even lost my artistic creation for a while. "("Chieko's Half Life")
The collection of lyric poems "Chieko" condenses the 28 years of love between the author and his lover from meeting to death, and is called "the history of modern poetry". An unparalleled collection of rare poems. "It describes the beginning of love between two people and praises the purification of life, and "Lemon Elegy" is one of the variations of sadness and longing.