One of my favourite books, The Tales of Ise, blends history, poetry and timeless gossip, some of my favourite things, stretching perceptions and experience.
Growing up as I did from country to country, floating from Dutch to Italian, French, English, Indonesian, German (and my own hybrid, incomprehensible jumble of them all), I’ve always loved finding new expressions and new ways of thinking – unique, without equivalents in other languages.
The Tales of Ise has lots of that, and more – inexpressible, seldom-thought-about topics, described in words that don’t exist in other languages, whose meaning is hard to pin down.
Writing the inexpressible in non-existent words is as good a definition of poetry as any you’ll hear.
Long ago, I wrote about this in a haiku, an almost untranslateable form in itself:
between any two
untranslateabilities
we find more meaning.
In episode 21 of the Tales, two lovers exchange poems, seven in all.
The final one has the image of:
… a cloud in mid-air
that vanishes in the sky
leaving not a trace.
The translator, Peter Macmillan, comments: “The word ‘mid-air’ (na-kazora), referring to the space between the sky and the earth, is a metaphor for being in a state that is neither one thing nor another.”
Elsewhere, I’ve seen “nakazora” described as “a Buddhist word” meaning “empty air” or “a state where the feet do not touch the ground”.
Elsewhere still, the etymology of なかぞら is explained as being made up of “naka” (middle, or centre) and “zora” (sky, or empty space).
The range of meanings has made the word understandably popular in Classical Japanese literature and, obviously, to me.
I’m not sure whether the romanisation of the word, hyphenated as “na-kazora”, is strictly correct, but I prefer it to “nakazora”. The word’s dismemberment furthers the ethereal, ungraspable aspect of its meaning.
My tanka poem:
na-kazora
blue sky, wide and still
—all in solitude, so rare,
floats a single cloud,
seen by all, na-kazora,
so untouchable.
*
Untouchable – something (or someone) everyone can see, but out of reach, like a star (either in space or a famous person).
Ethereal, in suspension, between states, shape-shifting, untranslateable.
Like lovers estrangeing, as in the Tales’ episode (or are they really finding true love)?
Or readers reading something new and strange?
In this game, only the reader can tell.
Beautiful words, thoughts and photograph, many thanks for sharing, you have brightened my day.
Regarding your uncertainty about the etymology, some comments:
Writing “na-kazora” is not inherently incorrect but is unconventional and non-standard for modern Japanese romanization. The components of なかぞら (nakazora) are なか (naka) (“middle” or “center”) and ぞら (zora) (an older or poetic form of 空 (sora), meaning “sky”).
The translator writing it as “na-kazora” might be introducing an unconventional split, potentially to make the term feel more segmented or poetic in English, but this doesn’t reflect the true etymological breakdown. If we wanted to highlight the actual components, the breakdown should ideally be naka-zora, as naka and zora are the meaningful parts of the compound.
So while “na-kazora” isn’t entirely wrong in an artistic sense, it doesn’t accurately reflect the word’s structure in Japanese.
In standard Hepburn romanization, the word would typically be written as nakazora, without a hyphen, as Japanese compounds are usually written as one continuous word when transliterated. The hyphenated form might be more common in linguistic or academic contexts where breaking the word helps to analyze its structure.
If the context of translation is artistic or explanatory, the hyphenation could serve to highlight the composite nature of the word, it’s less common in general usage, but this may be Peter Macmillan’s aim.
Thank you, Maruyama-san, for your kindness and remarks, I’m glad you enjoyed.
As to the word, I will stick to Peter Macmillan’s unconventional usage, in part as I prefer it optically, in part out of loyalty to Peter, and to keep consistency with his excellent text, the translation I am and shall be using.
I appreciated this post very much.
I found the image wonderful and the poem really delightful!
Grazie, Luisa, you are kind and I value your opinion much!