“Letters from the Haruki Murakami Library” \u306f\u300c\u65e9\u7a32\u7530\u5927\u5b66\u56fd\u969b\u6587\u5b66\u9928\uff08\u6751\u4e0a\u6625\u6a39\u30e9\u30a4\u30d6\u30e9\u30ea\u30fc\uff09\u3092\u8a2a\u308c\u3066\u3001\u3060\u308c\u304b\u306b\u304a\u624b\u7d19\u3092\u66f8\u304f\u3068\u3057\u305f\u3089\uff1f\u300d\u3068\u3044\u3046\u767a\u60f3\u3067\u3001\u56fd\u969b\u6587\u5b66\u9928\u306b\u6ede\u5728\u3044\u305f\u3060\u3044\u305f\u65b9\u306b\u57f7\u7b46\u3044\u305f\u3060\u304f\u30b7\u30ea\u30fc\u30ba\u4f01\u753b\u3067\u3059\u3002
\n\u300c\u56fd\u969b\u6587\u5b66\u9928\u7ffb\u8a33\u30d7\u30ed\u30b8\u30a7\u30af\u30c8\u300d\u30672025\u5e7411\u6708\uff5e12\u6708\u306b\u5f53\u9928\u306b\u6ede\u5728\u3044\u305f\u3060\u3044\u305f\u3001\u7c73\u56fd\u5728\u4f4f\u306e\u7ffb\u8a33\u5bb6\u3001\u4f5c\u5bb6\u306e\u30ed\u30fc\u30ec\u30eb\u30fb\u30c6\u30a4\u30e9\u30fc\uff08Laurel Taylor\uff09\u3055\u3093\u306b\u624b\u7d19\u3092\u66f8\u3044\u3066\u3044\u305f\u3060\u304d\u307e\u3057\u305f\u3002<\/p>\n
Dear Ono no Komachi,<\/p>\n
I write to you in a language that doesn\u2019t remotely resemble the languages that were primarily spoken and only rarely written in Europe when you walked this earth. My ninth-century peasant ancestors in the Holy Roman Empire were probably tucked away in corners of West, Middle, and East Francia, and Deheubarth (modern-day Germany, Belgium, France, and Wales), but though those farmers and millers and tailors were almost certainly illiterate, they were still blessed, just as you were, with the power of poetry and story. I imagine they told tales over fires in Old Welsh, Frankish, and Old High German, not to mention smatterings of Vulgar Latin, Church Latin, Old Dutch, Old Frisian, Gallo-Romance, and who knows what else. The lines between languages back then were not so neatly delineated as we like to pretend. (Nor are they now. Don\u2019t believe what scholars say when it comes to the borders between languages.)<\/p>\n
My ancestors\u2019 tongues and histories are a mystery to me, save for my guess that they were all humble. With last names like Taylor (the Tanaka of English) and Kommes (a mysterious Germanic name that most likely derives from \u201ckommen,\u201d \u201cto come\u201d) in my family lineage, I can hardly hail from some great dynasty or other. But I was never interested in knowing my ancestors\u2019 depths and nuances and sociocultural peccadillos. At least not the way I was interested in your history, Komachi. In you and your literary peers and descendants I was interested enough that I\u2019ve spent the better part of twenty years studying you all and learning a language that has almost nothing to do with my contemporary English. (Though we do have Japanese loan-words\u2014did you know? Tycoons and skoshes and such.)<\/p>\n
In contrast to my ancestors\u2019 mystifying and unfamiliar tongues, the fact that I can pick up your work, Komachi, and with comparatively little effort, read it, enjoy it, and dissect it seems nothing short of a joke played by Time. There are somethings<\/em> between us, across the chasm of thousands of miles and a millennium. On my end, an obsession with the etymologies of words and the traces in their marrow, even in languages I didn\u2019t<\/em> study obsessively. On your end, a fondness for fiery wordplay and wit and a reputation that far outstripped your living truth. (Because when I speak to you, Komachi, I of course mean you, but I also mean Sotoba Komachi and Kayoi Komachi and all the rest. You are as Threefold as the Fates.)<\/p>\n In the thousand years since you lived, your fame has transformed you into figures and forms that I don\u2019t think you could have anticipated in your own lifetime. You became a beggar woman gone to seed yet still trapped in her vainglory and a hollow-eyed skull in a field wailing for the pain of her afterlife. A certain poet even transformed you into a heaving-bosomed vixen. Given the breadth of your presence in Japan and beyond, I wonder if I may find your ghost even in the unfamiliar roots and branches of the Indo-European literary tree? What do you have to say to your contemporaries halfway round the world and what might they have to say to you? I wonder if they could possibly have imagined your silks, your rice, and your fishing boats, or if you could have imagined their wool, their fritters, and their dairy cattle. \u00a0(But again, we shouldn\u2019t trust the territorial lines these pesky scholars draw. Even in your century, the Silk Road was a vital artery stretching from Francia to Japan. My thought exercise in worlds unknown is already a fallacy.)<\/p>\n So Komachi, curiosity roused and wanting to tell you of far-distant poetry, I rooted through fields not my own and fields not your own in search of you, in search of how my forty-two-generations-removed ancestors might also commune with you. In Y Gododdin<\/em>, aided greatly by A.O.H Jarman\u2019s English translation, I read:<\/p>\n Er pan want maws mur trin, \u3084\u3055\u3057\u3044\u5fa1\u65b9
\ner pan aeth daear ar Aneirin,
\nnu neut ysgaras nat a Gododdin.<\/p>\n