When I came upon this haiku by Italian writer Toni Piccini, I felt it was like my own situation. Since the inspiration of Earth Language (EL) came to me, twenty years have passed. Before the structure and shapes were born, EL was just like a rainbow. If I would divert away, it could disappear in a second. Believing the dream bridge and keeping gazing at it, I could see EL clearer and clearer. If I doubted it, I had to drop from the rainbow, of course with no net below my feet. Step by step, I've set what I saw in the rainbow. Now I want to show that rainbow to everybody in the world.
The haiku I found was at the bottom of the English Haiku section in Toni Piccini's website. His site has English, French and Japanese translation sites for his original Italian haiku page. Here shows everything together for this haiku. Although here I took hoo's Japanese translation for my way of understanding.
This rainbow is a symbol of our personal concept of "freedom." Yes, what I was seeking for twenty years was freedom of communication, my having almost no English ability in America.. But I just didn't want to get freedom only for myself; and I dreamed to go beyond the freedom rainbow with everybody else on this planet together.
イタリーのライター、Toni Picciniさんのサイトの英語俳句コーナーの底辺でこの俳句に出合ったとき、思わず自分の心境と重ねました。地球語が私の中に降って湧いてから早や20年経ちましたが、まだしくみも形も成していないうちの地球語はまるで虹でした。その可能性を信じ見続けなければたちまち消え失せそうでした。周囲から「雲をつかむ気か」といわれながら、命綱もネットもなしに他人にはまだ見えない虹の橋を見据え、1歩1歩足場を固めては構築してきた20年でした。
Picciniさんの日本語ページでは、この俳句は「虹のむこうに 網はない わたしの曲芸」となっていますが、網はむこう側にあってもしようがなく、下で墜落者の命を護るためのものと捉えて訳し直しました。Picciniさんのメールには、虹を自由のシンボルと捉えているとありましたが、いわれてみると20年前の私は英語がわからないまま渡米して、伝達の自由を泣きたいほど求めていたのでした。私の場合、個人的に自由を得るのではなく、ついでに世界中の地球人と一緒に自由の虹を渡る夢を見てしまったんですね。
The original Italian by Toni Piccini Senza più rete oltre l’arcobaleno i miei acrobati The English translation by Denise Deeney With no net beyond the rainbow my acrobats |
The French translation by Jean Pierre Labrousse Sans aucun filet au-delà de l’arc-en-ciel mes acrobates The Japanese translation by hoo 網なしに虹越える マイ・アクロバット |
The EL translation by hoo
The symbols in the pictograph
: I/me, : risky, :foot, : hand, : building, : tree, : wave
The symbols in the EL translation
{preposition
mark, not)}:
without (~なしで(の))
{relation, multiple,
sheet}: net (n.) (網)
{back, pronoun-maker}: I, my, me
(depending on its position);
(this hand sign points the center of the chest by the thumb) (私)
:
acrobats (曲芸)
{action/act,open/energy-spread}:
performance (演技)
: hyphen to show
one concept compounding the left and the right characters
(左右をつないで1語を示すハイフン)
{less,(a
spinning top shape) balance} (difficulty of balance): risky (危険)
{preposition,
way to go through,space}: beyond
(~を超えて)
{{nature,space}
sky, water, light,
color}: rainbow (虹)