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My Translation of Basho’s Most Famous Poem (the one about the frog and the pond)
9 May, 2021
 
This haiku poem by Matsuo Basho :  FURUIKE YA KAWAZU TOBIKOMU MIZU NO OTO (古池や蛙飛こむ水のおと) is not only his best known work (on an international level) but it is probably the most famous of ALL haikus. The familiar literal translation goes like this:
An old pond, a frog jumps in, the sound of water.
But this very simple sounding poem can be translated and interpreted in countless ways ( the sign of a great work !). I have found a site online which presents 30 different English versions of this same haiku, all by great or near-great writers and poets. Amazingly, none of them gets it quite right (in my humble opinion)! Here is the site:

Tsukuba , Ibaraki , Japan , Avi-landau , Most-famous-poem , Matsuo-basho , ட்சூகுபா , இபராகி , ஜப்பான் , ஆவி-ல்யாந்‌டா ,