Worlding Sei Shônagon: The Pillow Book in Translation

Koumé Kéitchirau (1892) French

63 Koumé Kéitchirau “Ce qui me charme” Revue française du Japon IV.3 (1892): 126 Koumé Kéitchirau (1866–1934) (his name is today more commonly romanized as Kume Keiichiro), was a Japanese painter and eventually professor at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music and director of the Imperial Art Academy. He studied with Raphael Collin (a prominent figure in Franco-Japanese art history, mentor to the first generation of Japanese painters working in oils) in Paris from 1885 to 1892, and became a leading proponent of the yôga (Western -style painting) school. Along with fellow artist Kuroda Seiki, Koumé was instrumental in introducing Impressionism and plein-air painting to Japan. He and Seiki founded an art school called the Tenshin Dôjô in 1893 and soon found themselves at the centre of a controversy over the depiction of the nude in Japan. The Kume Museum of Art in Tokyo memorializes both the painter and his historian father, and a prestigious award named after him is awarded to young artists. Koumé Kéitchirau (1892) 64 The French version of this single passage appears, marked simply as “(translation)” and not in any way identified as Sei Shônagon’s work, in this short-lived journal from the last decade of the nineteenth century, produced under the auspices of the Société de la langue française. At least this is true the first time it appears; a subsequent printing of the journal issue is more thorough in the ascription, correcting the oversight by stating that this passage is from the “initial pages” of the masterpiece written by “Shyou nagon Séi.” This same translator, identified only as “K.”, the following year published in the same journal a version of another famous Pillow Book passage: the anecdote about Okinamaro, an unfortunate dog at the imperial court. French 65 Ce qui me charme (traduction) Ce qui me charme ; au printemps, c’est l’aube, lorsque tout s’éclaire peu à peu, le ciel où se détachent les contours des montagnes se nuance de rose et les nuages violacés s’étendent en bandes allongées. En été, c’est la nuit, je ne veux pas dire seulement sous la pleine lune, mais c’est aussi la nuit opaque que les lucioles sillonnent de leurs carrières qui s’entrecroisent en voltigeant ou qu’au loin à une ou deux seulement elles piquent de leur pâle lumière ; et que j’aime mieux encore quand la pluie tombe, la nuit d’été ! Ce qui me charme, à l’automne, c’est le soir, lors que le soleil descendant darde ses derniers rayons et va toucher la crête des monts. Les corbeaux par trois, par deux, par quatre, se pressent de rentrer à leurs nids ; déjà cela me rend rêveuse; qu’est ce donc lors que je contemple au loin, à peine visibles les vols d’oies sauvages ! Puis aussitôt que le soleil a disparu le bruit du vent, le chant des insectes… Tout cela me ravit. Et en hiver ! parlerai-je de la neige du matin ou de la gelée plus blanche que tout. Non, tout simplement, lors que le froid est piquant, n’est-ce pas délicieux d’allumer vite le feu, et de voir tout ce va et vient de gens transportant des braseros ardents; comme cela donne la sensation de l’hiver ! Avec le jour le froid devient moins vif, mais ne laisse pourtant pas le charbon blanchir dans le foyer ou le brasero. (p. 126) Koumé Kéitchirau (1892) 66 What charms me (translation) What charms me; in spring it is dawn, when everything lightens little by little, the sky in which the mountain contours detach themselves becomes nuanced in pink and mauve clouds stretch out in long bands. In summer, it is night, I do not mean only at full moon, but also dark nights when the fireflies criss-cross as they fly about or when faraway in just ones or twos they prick with their pale light; and what I love even more when rain falls, the summer night! What charms me, in autumn, is the evening, when the setting sun beams its last rays and touches the mountain tops. Crows in threes, twos, fours hasten to return to their nests; already that makes me dreamy; just as when I watch from afar, hardly visible, the flight of...