In the _utai_, though there is no terminal rhyming, there is sometimes a tendency to repeat the same syllable more than once in a phrase, with the deliberate intention of accentuating it.
Concerning the Difficulties of Translation
Only half-a-dozen of the complete _No_ and portions of a few others have been translated into English from all the many Japanese originals that are available. But this is scarcely surprising. In translating any of the _No_ there are two supreme difficulties to be encountered. The first depends on the organic remoteness of the Japanese language from our own, which is common to any translation from the Japanese; and the second is the peculiar difficulty of translating the _utai_ because the exact meaning of many portions of them is disputed even by Japanese authorities, and then even where the meaning may be clear to a Japanese expert the compression of the language is so great that it cannot literally be rendered into a European language. From a French or German, even from a Russian original, a literal translation is comprehensible even if it is not beautiful in English. A literal English translation from a Japanese original is arrant nonsense. The Japanese language is not merely unlike ours; the whole mode and order of the thought upon which it is founded is on an entirely different plan from our own. The more conscientious the translator the greater his difficulty. It is easy enough to translate "_O yasumi nasai_" as "good-night," but how are we to say in English what it really means, _i. e._ approximately "honourably deign to take rest," without appearing remote and stilted? And that is just a simple little common phrase; when the Japanese to be translated is contorted and coruscated with "pillow words" and "pivot words," with a phrase from an old classical poem of which the reader is supposed to know the whole, and cannot "see the point" unless he does so, what is the translator to do? But suppose, further, that a couple of the words are the subject of learned controversy, as is frequently the case, is it likely two translations will coincide?
Concerning the Translations of others, as well as those in this Book
There are three principal lines that a much-to-be-pitied translator may take. (1) He may give up in despair any attempt at being literal. He belongs, let us say, to the school that think it best to translate "_O yasumi nasai_" as "good-night." He has this pre-eminent virtue that he will give us at least a version which can be read as English. And there is much to be said for this mode of treatment. (2) On the other hand, a great contrast to translator No. 1 is he who desires to give a literal version of the Japanese, and who does not care in the least whether it sounds smooth and finished in English. (3) Then there is the last, and perhaps the most misguided of all, who cares a great deal to convey the true Japanese impression and also tries to polish and round off the English so that it may not appear too stilted or too rough, but may convey to the English reader something of the true spirit of the Japanese without always diverting his attention to some peculiarity of the rendering's bodily form. As I myself have endeavoured to supply the third type of translations, I may be allowed to enlarge a little on the attitude of mind of one making the attempt.