Benjamin L. Russell wrote (on 28-12-00 17:35 -0500):
"Furuike ya! Kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto." --Matsuo Basho [..] Is it OK if I show off and steal some thunder? :)
So much for that idea...!
"(It's) An old pond! The sound of water steadily dripping in..."
Actually, if I may add, the translation I remember was the following:
"[It's] An old pond! The sound of water as the frog jumps in...."
"Kawazu" means "frog," and "tobikomu" means "(to) jump in."
That makes sense. I was guessing that "kawazu" was the old form of modern "kawarazu" (`without changing'). Modern `frog' is "kaeru", though, and the transitive form of "kawaru" (`change') is also "kaeru", so I suppose there is some linguistic relationship. "tobikomu" makes much more sense this way too. I thought it was a figurative usage, but it still didn't sound right... -- Frank Atanassow, Information & Computing Sciences, Utrecht University Padualaan 14, PO Box 80.089, 3508 TB Utrecht, Netherlands Tel +31 (030) 253-3261 Fax +31 (030) 251-379