Ame ni mo makezu

Ame ni mo makezu (雨ニモマケズ, 'Be not Defeated by the Rain')^[1] is a poem written by Kenji Miyazawa,^[2] a poet from the northern prefecture of Iwate in Japan who lived from 1896 to 1933. It was written in a notebook with a pencil in 1931 while he was fighting illness in Hanamaki, and was discovered posthumously, unknown even to his family when it was published. Because "11.3" was written at the top of the opening page with blue pencil, it is presumed to have been written on November 3, 1931.

Kenji always carried a notebook and pencil with him, and there are as many as 15 notebooks. In the notebook with Ame ni mo makezu, Kenji wrote about his thoughts on his sickbed, his religious beliefs, and the important events of his life. Although Kenji did not intend to show Ame ni mo makezu to others as poetry, it has become his most widely known poem and is considered one of his masterpieces.

In November 1936, a poetry monument engraved with this work was erected in Hanamaki. The poem was popularized by being recorded in "Kaze no Matasaburo", a collection of works for children published in 1939. On April 11, 2011, the poem was read aloud in English by the President of the Cathedral of Samuel Lloyd III at a memorial service was held at the National Cathedral in Washington to mourn the victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake.

The poem

The text of the poem is given below in Japanese, as a transliteration using romaji, and in translation. Aside from including some kanji, the poem was written in katakana rather than hiragana (see style). This was used expression like antithesis. The last sentence reveals subject.

Original	Modern orthography	Transliteration	English translation^[3]
雨ニモマケズ風ニモマケズ雪ニモ夏ノ暑サニモマケヌ丈夫ナカラダヲモチ慾ハナク決シテ瞋ラズイツモシヅカニワラッテヰル一日ニ玄米四合ト味噌ト少シノ野菜ヲタベアラユルコトヲジブンヲカンジョウニ入レズニヨクミキキシワカリソシテワスレズ野原ノ松ノ林ノ蔭ノ小サナ萓ブキノ小屋ニヰテ東ニ病氣ノコドモアレバ行ッテ看病シテヤリ西ニツカレタ母アレバ行ッテソノ稻ノ朿ヲ負ヒ南ニ死ニサウナ人アレバ行ッテコハガラナクテモイヽトイヒ北ニケンクヮヤソショウガアレバツマラナイカラヤメロトイヒヒデリノトキハナミダヲナガシサムサノナツハオロオロアルキミンナニデクノボートヨバレホメラレモセズクニモサレズサウイフモノニワタシハナリタイ	雨にもまけず風にもまけず雪にも夏の暑さにもまけぬ丈夫なからだをもち慾はなく決して瞋らずいつもしずかにわらっている一日に玄米四合と味噌と少しの野菜をたべあらゆることをじぶんをかんじょうにいれずによくみききしわかりそしてわすれず野原の松の林の蔭の小さな萱ぶきの小屋にいて東に病気のこどもあれば行って看病してやり西につかれた母あれば行ってその稲の束を負い南に死にそうな人あれば行ってこわがらなくてもいいといい北にけんかやそしょうがあればつまらないからやめろといいひでりのときはなみだをながしさむさのなつはおろおろあるきみんなにでくのぼうとよばれほめられもせずくにもされずそういうものにわたしはなりたい	ame ni mo makezu kaze ni mo makezu yuki ni mo natsu no atsusa ni mo makenu jōbu na karada wo mochi yoku wa naku kesshite ikarazu itsu mo shizuka ni waratte iru ichi nichi ni genmai yon gō to miso to sukoshi no yasai wo tabe arayuru koto wo jibun wo kanjō ni irezu ni yoku mikiki shi wakari soshite wasurezu nohara no matsu no hayashi no kage no chiisa na kayabuki no koya ni ite higashi ni byōki no kodomo areba itte kanbyō shite yari nishi ni tsukareta haha areba itte sono ine no taba wo oi minami ni shinisō na hito areba itte kowagaranakute mo ii to ii kita ni kenka ya soshō ga areba tsumaranai kara yamero to ii hideri no toki wa namida wo nagashi samusa no natsu wa oro-oro aruki minna ni deku-no-bō to yobare homerare mo sezu ku ni mo sarezu sō iu mono ni watashi wa naritai	Unbeaten by the rain Unbeaten by the wind Bested by neither snow nor summer heat Strong of body Free of desire Never angry Always smiling quietly Dining daily on four cups of brown rice Some miso and a few vegetables Observing all things Leaving myself out of account But remembering well Living in a small, thatched-roof house In the meadow beneath a canopy of pines Going east to nurse the sick child Going west to bear sheaves of rice for the weary mother Going south to tell the dying man there is no cause for fear Going north to tell those who fight to put aside their trifles Shedding tears in time of drought Wandering at a loss during the cold summer Called useless by all Neither praised Nor a bother Such is the person I wish to be

Style

Miyazawa chose to write the poem using katakana. This could seem to be stylistically odd from a modern perspective, as katakana is nowadays (usually) only used in Japanese writing to denote foreign words. However, at the time, katakana rather than hiragana was the preferred syllabary. The limited use of kanji might be viewed as a move to make his poem more accessible to the rural folk of northern Japan with whom he spent his life,^{[citation needed]} or perhaps as similar to American poet E. E. Cummings's style in using primarily lower case.^{[citation needed]} Another interpretation could be that, since katakana were regularly used in pre-war Japan for laws, regulations and other normative texts, the use of katakana here emphasizes the normative character of this promise to self.

Notes

It is important to note that cold summers in Japan mean a poorer harvest, hence the line "when the summer is cold, wandering upset."

The transliteration above is not direct, and uses a modern romaji rendering. Miyazawa wrote in the orthography common to his time, where コハガラナクテ (kohagaranakute) would today be rendered as コワガラナクテ (kowagaranakute), イヒ (ihi) as イイ (ii), and サウ (sau) as ソウ (sou).
"hidori" in hidori no toki ha namida wo nagashi is generally taken as a simple typo, as Miyazawa made similar typos in his other works. But since hidori means the daily wages of day laborers in the dialect of Hanamaki, some people believe the true meaning of this verse is that Miyazawa cries out of sympathy with the poor farmers who have to work as day laborers.^[4]

The part of Higashi ni byouki no kodomo areba itte kannjo shiteyari nishi ni tukareta haha areba itte sono ina no taba wo oi ("If there is a sick child in the east, I go and take care of it. If there is a tired mother in the west, I go and take the bunch of the rice instead") and minna ni dekunobo to yobare homeraremosezu kunimo sarezu ("I am called a wooden doll by everyone and not praised or dropped") was presumed the sprit of the Lotus Sutra’s Sadaparibu Bodhisattva.

A memo with tanka about the Lotus Sutra was put in a thin roll in the cylinder part next to the notebook where the pencil was put.

References

^ "Silenced by gaman". The Economist. April 20, 2011. Archived from the original on 22 April 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-23. The best-known poem by the region's most beloved poet, Kenji Miyazawa (born in 1896), starts "Be not defeated by the rain". It extols the virtues of enduring harsh conditions with good grace.
^ "Can poetry in translation ever be as poetic in its new language?". The Japanese Times Online. Retrieved 2010-06-15.
^ Hart, Larrabee (August 15, 2012). "Kenji Miyazawa's Poem "Ame ni mo makezu"--Interview with TOMO Translators David Sulz and Hart Larrabee". Tomo: Friendship Through Fiction—An Anthology of Japan Teen Stories. Archived from the original on 2015-08-22. Retrieved 2020-11-19.
^ 宮沢賢治学会イーハトーブセンター (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 2010-01-13. Retrieved 2010-06-15.

External links

Be not Defeated by the Rain, a translation by David Sulz
Standing Up to the Rain, a translation from Ogura, Toyofumi (1948). Letters from the End of the World. Kodansha International Ltd. ISBN 4-7700-2776-1. OCLC 22226393.
Someone who is unfazed by the rain, a translation by Michael Brase

[1] "Silenced by gaman". The Economist. April 20, 2011. Archived from the original on 22 April 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-23. The best-known poem by the region's most beloved poet, Kenji Miyazawa (born in 1896), starts "Be not defeated by the rain". It extols the virtues of enduring harsh conditions with good grace.

[2] "Can poetry in translation ever be as poetic in its new language?". The Japanese Times Online. Retrieved 2010-06-15.

[3] Hart, Larrabee (August 15, 2012). "Kenji Miyazawa's Poem "Ame ni mo makezu"--Interview with TOMO Translators David Sulz and Hart Larrabee". Tomo: Friendship Through Fiction—An Anthology of Japan Teen Stories. Archived from the original on 2015-08-22. Retrieved 2020-11-19.

[4] 宮沢賢治学会イーハトーブセンター (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 2010-01-13. Retrieved 2010-06-15.

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v t e Japanese poetry
Major forms	haikai kanshi waka haiku hokku renga renku senryū tanka
Poetry works and collections	List of Japanese poetry anthologies Kaifūsō Man'yōshū Nijūichidaishū Kai Ōi Iroha
Individuals and groups of Japanese poets	Japanese poets (category list) Thirty-Six Immortals of Poetry Rokkasen
Individual poems	Articles with poems