My final translation project

It’s my last semester as an MA student, and one of my last courses is on translation between Japanese and English. One useful thing I’ve learned is the value of more than one head working on a translation, so as an experiment, I’m going to post the pre-final draft of my final project here. It’s a translation of a Japanese fairy tale called 尻鳴りべら into English (I’ve titled it “The spatula that makes butts fart”–and yes, I chose this story myself!). I’d be really happy to get suggestions and questions from anyone, whether you speak Japanese or not. I’m not including the original Japanese here because it is under copyright, but if you are interested in comparing it to the original, leave me a comment, and I’ll get it to you. I want to make sure that my translation is faithful to the original meaning (although not necessarily an exact translation) AND that it makes sense and fits well into the genre of “fairy tale” in English. The final draft is due on December 5, so please make your comments soon!

[Update: Thanks to my husband for his insightful suggestions! I am stubborn though, and made only one change. The strikeout text marks the spot!]

My translation:

The spatula that makes butts fart

A long time ago, in a faraway land, a man was living hand-to-mouth. No matter how hard he worked, his life never got easier, so he thought, “I was born to be a poor man. My only hope to chase the spirit of poverty out of me is to rely on the gods.” He decided to go to the nearby shrine one hundred times to pray that he would become a rich man.

He continued going to the shrine and finally, in the wee hours of the morning after the hundredth time, the poor man leaned against a post and unintentionally dozed off. As he did so, the god of the shrine appeared in a dream and told him,

“Well, well. I heard your prayer and I will give you this spatula. If you stroke something with the red side, an interesting fart noise will come out, and the black side will stop the fart noise. You can use this to get money.” And in a flash, the god was gone.

Suddenly, the poor man raised his head and looked next to him. On the ground, he saw a small spatula that could fit in his hand. The man thought, “This is a thing to be grateful for,” and took the spatula home.

The next day, the man thought, “I’ll test this out,” and rapidly walked out of his home rushed out. On the other side of the street, a horse was tied up, so he brushed the red side of the spatula against its butt. Immediately, a groan-like sound came from the horse’s butt, and it gradually got louder and louder. It began to make this sound:

Hyou, hyou, hyou, hyouronkou
Big road, old road, in the middle of the old main road
I was rubbed with the newest spatula.
That’s why my behind is sounding:
Hyou, hyou, hyou, hyouronkou

The horse was so startled by its own butt making such a strange noise that with its rear legs, it kicked the ground, gan, pyon, and bolted away. The horse’s owner ran wildly after it. People came to see the spectacle, making a big uproar. The poor man acted like he didn’t know what had happened and asked the horse’s owner, “What’s going on?”

“Well, please have a look. The horse’s butt is making a noise like a festival band and won’t stop. The horse is tired, so I want to stop it, but…,” said the owner, turning pale. He tried calling the horse, but nothing worked.

“That’s troubling, isn’t it,” said the poor man. “I will pray for you.”

The poor man put on a pensive face and approached the horse. He brushed the black side of the spatula against the horse’s butt, and suddenly, the sound stopped. “Well, I am grateful. Thanks to you, the horse stopped making that sound,” said the horse’s owner. He invited the poor man for sake and dinner, and then the poor man went home.

Now, making a horse’s butt fart doesn’t make money, thought the poor man, so he waited for the right time to use the spatula. He heard that there was a festival in a neighboring town, so he went to see. The daughter of the richest man in town had come to worship with her mother, just the two of them. So, right away, the poor man brushed the red side of the spatula against the girl’s butt. Her butt began, quietly at first, to make a groaning sound, and then it made this sound:

Hyou, hyou, hyou, hyouronkou
Big road, old road, in the middle of the old main road
I was rubbed with the newest spatula.
That’s why my behind is sounding:
Hyou, hyou, hyou, hyouronkou

The girl turned bright red, shook off her mother’s hand, and ran home. When she got there, she hid inside her futon, but the sound kept getting louder and louder, all day and all night. It got so loud that the neighbors three houses down on each side could hear it. The rich man couldn’t endure the fact that his precious, only daughter had such a shameful illness. He couldn’t even eat. He called doctors and priests until he ran out of resources, but nothing had any effect.

The next day, the poor man thought that now was his chance. He knocked on the rich man’s gate and said, “I will pray for your daughter’s illness to be cured.”

The rich man came flying out, and rubbing his forehead with his hand, and said, “Please do what you can to help me.”

“Well, it’s an easy thing, but if people are present, my magic spell won’t work, so everyone should wait over there,” said the poor man. The people kept at a distance, and the two of them were alone. He made the girl take off her clothes, then brushed the black side of the spatula against her butt. The sound stopped suddenly, as if a lid had been replaced.

In the rich man’s house, everyone very happily said, “Thanks to you, thanks to you.” As for the daughter, she said to her father, “Although it was to cure my illness, this man has seen me down to my skin. Please make him my husband.” So the poor man became the rejoicing rich man’s son-in-law.

The end.

Tags: Fairy tale, Japanese, Translation