Her, S.-Y. (2023, September 21). Frog After Frog: Prompt Engineering With Alternate Translations. The Philosopher's Meme. https://thephilosophersmeme.com/articles/frog-after-frog/ Frog After Frog: Prompt Engineering With Alternate Translations
I report the results of a prompt engineering experiment on DALL-E 2 involving different Japanese-to-English translations of the Frog Haiku by Matsuo Bashō (松尾 芭蕉, 1644 – November 28, 1694).
*Originally published in Artificial Intelligence Art, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21428/f13786d0.a8196ff9
I. Introduction
In this article, I report the results of a prompt engineering experiment on DALL-E 2, conducted between August and November of 2022. I hypothesised that prompts containing different translations of the same sentence will yield results from DALL-E that vary in some useful way for artists, and tested this hypothesis by generating artworks using different translations of the same sentence. To do this, I engineered a minimal prompt template and combined it with various Japanese-to-English translations of the Frog Haiku by Matsuo Bashō (松尾 芭蕉, 1644 – November 28, 1694).
Synopsis
In Part II, I explain my hypothesis.
In Part III, I justify the use of the Frog Haiku for the experiment.
In Part IV, I engineer the prompt.
In Part V, I present the AI artworks generated using the prompt template.
In Part VI, I draw a brief conclusion.
II. Hypothesis
DALL-E, a transformer language model developed by OpenAI, can generate images based on natural language descriptions[1]. OpenAI provides a service which allows users to generate images including artworks through prompts[2]. Prompts are queries presented in similar form to tasks which were solved by a language model during its original training. They are typically in the form of a sentence with blanks for the model to fill in (in the case of natural language models), or a detailed description of an image (in the case of text-to-image models). Prompt engineering refers to the activity of constructing more effective prompts[3], and is a key skill for creating AI art.
At an abstract, simplified level, image generation of the sort performed by transformer language models like DALL-E involves: an encoder, which extracts meaningful features from the input (text); a decoder, which subsequently reassembles the extracted features into the output (image); and the latent space between the decoder and the encoder[4], which compress the input by extracting and organising semantically important patterns from it into symbolic representations of these patterns, so that the decoder can reconstruct particular features using those symbols[5].
As such, creating AI art using transformers resembles translation, not only in terms of human interface technology, but as an intrinsic, architectural characteristic of the models themselves. It may not be too far fetched to say that prompt engineering is the art of human-to-machine translation. Taking the notion that “all art is translation” [6] seriously, I abductively reasoned that all translation is art also. Applying a similar line of thinking as researchers who attempted to reverse engineer DALL-E’s “secret language” by recursively using the nonsensical textual output displayed in its image output as prompts[7], I hypothesised that conceptualising prompt engineering as a form of translation will be useful for the purpose of creating AI art.
More formally, my hypothesis was that: prompts containing different translations of the same sentence will yield results from DALL-E that vary in some useful way for artists. The experiment I devised to test my hypothesis was to create AI artworks with DALL-E using prompts engineered using different translations of the same sentence, and examining what kind of output was generated depending on the translation used.
III. Selecting the Sentence
Translation is a much more complex activity than readjusting the wording of a sentence. It involves numerous considerations ranging from aesthetics to cross-cultural communication, and one translation can sometimes vary considerably from another. Thus, I needed to obtain a corpus of translations of the same sentence which met these criteria:
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Many alternate, English, translations exist of the same sentence;
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The translators provided due care to each of the many translations;
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There is substantial variation between the translations;
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The sentence is short and clear, yet descriptive of an image or a scene;
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The meaning of the sentence is unambiguous in the original text;
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The integral meaning of the sentence is not intertextual, such as by relying on references to other works.
Together, the requirements above seem paradoxical. For instance, what need (or possibility) is there for alternate translations, unless the meaning of the sentence was ambiguous, leading to disagreement among translators? One example may be that enough time had passed between translations that the recipient language had changed substantially, such as in the case with ancient texts like Plato’s Republic or the Holy Bible. But linguistic differences owing primarily to differences in the translator’s language of the time might skew the results in the direction of expressing those temporal differences. Furthermore, the Republic is a rich work that forms a complexly integrated whole, of which no particular segment can be understood entirely without the rest; the Bible is a definitively intertextual work, being a collection of several scriptures from multiple cultures and religions.
While an AI-assisted exegesis of the Bible or of Plato was an extremely interesting prospect, it was not what I wanted to examine. I needed to test various translations, from at least the same era, of a short, clear, descriptive, and unambiguous sentence, which was nonetheless deemed interesting enough of a translational puzzle for many translators to give it an earnest and original attempt. Yet, if not for the ambiguity resulting from intertextual or extratextual factors, or long-term linguistic drift, what need do texts have for such numerous alternate translations? Was there such a sentence that could satisfy these paradoxical requirements?
Basho’s Frog Haiku turned out to be the perfect candidate.
Basho’s Frog Haiku
古池や
蛙飛び込む
水の音
—Matsuo Bashō (松尾 芭蕉, 1644 – November 28, 1694)
The old mere!
A frog jumping in
The sound of water
—Matsuo Bashō (transl. Masaoka Shiki)[8]
There is little doubt that Bashō’s Frog Haiku is the most famous haiku of all time. It is almost certainly the most translated haiku as well: hundreds of formal translations exist[9], and the act of translating it has become something of a metapoetic rite of passage amongst multilingual haijin. The precise details of its inception are debated, but its composition is fairly well documented. The earliest estimated date of its composition is set at 1681, Tenna 1; the most popular theory sets it at 1686, Jōkyō 3[9]. It was put together at the Bashō-an (a hut in which Bashō resided at the time) in Fukagawa, Tokyo, during the Kawazu No Ku-Awase (“Frog Verse Competition”) in the spring of 1686[10]. It was subsequently published in two anthologies in the same year: the Iori-Zakura anthology (edited by Saigin, published in March 1686); and the Haru no Hi anthology (edited by Kakei, published in August 1686)[9]. Three versions of the poem exist (emphasis denotes alteration from the previous version):
| Version | Japanese | Romaji | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (Kikaku) | 山吹や蛙飛んだる水の音 | yamabuki ya/kawazu tondaru/mizu no oto | Mountain rose A frog flies in The sound of water |
| 2 (Saigin) | 古池や蛙飛んだる水の音 | furuike ya/kawazu tondaru/mizu no oto | An old pond A frog flies in The sound of water |
| 3 (Kakei) | 古池や蛙飛び込む水の音 | furuike ya/kawazu tobikomu/mizu no oto | An old pond A frog jumps in The sound of water |
These three versions are the consequence of how the poem was drafted. At the Awase, Bashō presented the second and third lines of the Frog Haiku as they appear in versions 1 and 2, without the first line:
蛙飛んだる
水の音kawazu tondaru
mizu no otoA frog flies in
The sound of water
The first line of a haiku, referred to as kamigo (上五, lit. the “top five” moji of the poem) sets the scene, and is traditionally considered important[9]. Coming up with an appropriate kamigo upon being prompted with the rest, a task referred to as “capping” the poem, requires both wit and knowledge, for there are numerous rules and intertextual implications to consider.
Takarai Kikaku (宝井其角, 1661–1707), one of Basho’s most accomplished disciples, attempted to cap the master’s poem with the following kamigo:
山吹や
yamabuki ya
Mountain rose
The yamabuki or the kerria flower had been, since the Heian period (794-1185), associated with the imagery of croaking frogs (due to some older classics pairing them together). By pairing it with the imagery of a jumping frog instead, Kikaku was offering an aggressive criticism of the established poetic order which considered the imagery of a frog jumping (as opposed to singing or croaking) to be vulgar[11].
However, Basho suggested his famous alternative:
古池や
furuike ya
An old pond
This resulted in “古池や蛙飛んだる水の音” (furuike ya/kawazu tondaru/mizu no oto), at which the poets gathered at the competition were truly impressed. It was not only a departure from the poetic norms at large, but also a critique of the obvious criticism of convention which had itself become conventional[10]. By refusing to recognise orthodoxy, even as the baseline point of reference for ironic gestures (as was the case with Kikaku’s critical haiku), Basho was able to create a new and independent cultural context for his haiku.
As evident from the difference between the Saigin version and the Kakei version shown above, Basho made an additional alteration to his poem thereafter. His initial choice of words in describing the frog’s jumping as tondaru (飛んだる) was a colloquial phrasing. This was characteristic of haikai, which made liberal use of vernacular Japanese [12][11]. Nonetheless, it does not appear in the final version printed in the Kakei anthology. Basho instead settled on “古池や蛙飛び込む水の音” (furuike ya/kawazu tobikomu/mizu no oto), a more formal choice of words. In doing so, Basho ensured that the innovative force of the poem rests neither on its critique of classical, waka, poetry; nor its fluent employment of contemporary, haikai, conventions. At this point, the poem can be said to have finally achieved independence from both the past and the present, thereby becoming the first of its kind. Hence, as Shiki points out, “there is not the smallest thing to add beyond saying that it is about the sound the speaker heard when a frog jumped into the water of an old pond.”[13] It is in this way that Basho’s Frog Haiku satisfies the paradoxical requirements of unambiguous, self-contained meaning and translational interest, as well as being short, clear, and descriptive.
IV. Prompt Engineering
In order to engineer the best prompt for comparing different translations of the Frog Haiku, I tested various combinations of the poem and prompt elements. My goal was to produce a template prompt which reliably produces aesthetically pleasing output without relying on detailed, specific, descriptors outside of the Frog Haiku; I wanted the effect of the particular translation to be apparent in the output. Furthermore, I wanted the output to match the mood and aesthetic of the poem. I thus decided to aim towards producing Japanese woodblock prints in the style of master printmakers.
In traditional haiku competitions, two poems are presented side-by-side to be judged together. Similarly, I present two samples per generation below.
First, I tried Masaoka Shiki’s English translation on its own:
The old mere! A frog jumping in The sound of water
The results were photorealistic images of frogs in bog water, in rather muted colour, accompanied by rather dirty looking plants. Perhaps the word “mere” introduced a bias towards a specific scene, since the term has some connotations of standing or shallow water.
However, substituting the word “mere” with “pond” did not improve the results in this aspect:
The old pond! A frog jumping in The sound of water
Here is the naïve prompt; Basho’s original poem in Japanese, as it appears in the Kakei anthology:
古池や蛙飛び込む水の音
Interestingly, the Japanese prompt consistently returned more vibrant and intimate photos of frogs in a garden pond setting. This probably reflects the cultural biases of photographers whose data contributed to these generated images: frogs have had a more consistent run as a beloved animal with positive connotations in the Sinosphere compared to the West. Additionally, the particular species of frogs which inhabit different regions of the world no doubt have a direct impact on whether bogs or gardens are associated with frogs in the respective language of each region. This may be a worthwhile lead to pursue in AI-assisted folkbiology research.
Adding a space between each line of the poem seemed to further accentuate this effect:
古池や 蛙飛び込む 水の音
Since I wanted to experiment specifically with AI-generated art, I added a medium:
“The old mere! A frog jumping in The sound of water”. Japanese woodblock print
The results were quite promising for such a simple and straightforward prompt. Incidentally, omitting “Japanese” from the prompt results in significant stylistic differences:
“The old mere! A frog jumping in The sound of water” Woodblock print
The output consistently featured single-colour prints that appear to be on paper, and more than one frog seemed to be praying rather than jumping.
Adding the medium (woodblock print; 木版画) to the naïve prompt:
古池や蛙飛び込む水の音。木版画。
While thematically consistent with the concept of medieval Japanese art about frogs, the output resembled painted screens (屏風; byōbu) and hanging scrolls (掛軸; kakejiku) rather than woodblock prints. Specifying the medium as “日本の木版画” (Japanese woodblock printing) and appending a style, “浮世絵” (ukiyo-e), did not resolve the issue:
古池や蛙飛び込む水の音。日本の木版画。浮世絵。
The output continued to display painted, rather than printed, imagery. On the one hand, this is understandable given that ukiyo-e was initially a style of painting which was only transferred to printing in its transition into mass production. On the other hand, it is unclear what was behind the model’s preference for one medium over the other, given that the medium was clearly specified. Additionally, I find the aesthetic tone and the liberal use of empty space delightful.
I appended names of some famous master printmakers to the earlier English language prompt specifying “Japanese woodblock print”:
“The old mere! A frog jumping in The sound of water” Japanese woodblock print, style of Kitagawa Utamaro, style of Katsushika Hokusai, style of Utagawa Hiroshige, style of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, style of Hashiguchi Goyo
A marked improvement in mood and style emerged. The frogs produced using this prompt were more dynamic, whimsical, and lively. Indeed, while not precisely resembling the style of Japanese woodblock prints I was initially looking for, it was aesthetically satisfying.
Next, I added a minor adjustment, adding “木版画” (woodblock print) to the same prompt:
“The old mere! A frog jumping in The sound of water” Japanese woodblock print (木版画), style of Kitagawa Utamaro, style of Katsushika Hokusai, style of Utagawa Hiroshige, style of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, style of Hashiguchi Goyo
This resulted in a sudden shift in tone towards the salacious, with output frequently featuring imagery of anthropomorphic frogs in kimono. This is most likely due to the fact that some master printmakers were famous for their bijin-ga (美人画) and shunga (春画). Bijin-ga were prints of beautiful women, often produced to be sold as souvenirs to fans of celebrity courtesans and theatre actors; shunga were erotic artworks featuring scenes of various sexual acts. In spite of printmaking guilds proscribing the practice, woodblock printing technology greatly contributed to the increase in both quality and quantity of erotic art over the centuries. The practice continued to flourish until the advent of pornographic photography and the Meiji era censorship of “premodern” culture finally displaced it[14]. Given that Western museums and galleries have historically been reluctant to highlight the existence of shunga and exhibit them, it’s little wonder that “Japanese woodprint” (even juxtaposed with the names of specific printmakers) lacks any of the erotic connotations of “木版画”.
Adding the names of each artist in both English and kanji seemed to have unpredictable effects on the output:
“The old mere! A frog jumping in The sound of water” —Matsuo Bashō 松尾 芭蕉. Japanese woodblock print 木版画. in the style of Kitagawa Utamaro 喜多川 歌麿, style of Katsushika Hokusai 葛飾 北斎, style of Utagawa Hiroshige 歌川 広重, style of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi 月岡 芳年, style of Hashiguchi Goyo 橋口 五葉
Adding the names of the various master printers in both English and Japanese seemed to reduce the quality of the output. Perhaps it was because the task of reconciling the distinctive styles of the masters is a contradictory task, and stifling the bold and extreme stylistic tendencies of each artist by diluting them with those of another’s (even if they are all masters) worsens the net result. It could also be that the contexts in which the names of the artists appear in both English and Japanese tend not to curate the exemplars based on aesthetics, but instead educational accuracy, such as historical facts. Or perhaps the contexts which omitted the kanji were more likely to feature collections already filtered through the aesthetic preferences of a Western eye, rather than aiming at a comprehensive collection watered down by the artists’ earlier or lesser works.
The fact that woodblock prints were a mass-produced medium, which were created and sold by studios that typically specialised in the styles of the master artists, probably contributes to the varied impact of each artist’s name as well. For instance, students inherited both the leadership of a studio as well as the master’s name, meaning that power and prestige attached to a printmaker’s name strongly correlated with the number of prints attributed to it, which in turn corresponded with the commercial success of the studio. Furthermore, the production of a woodblock print was difficult to begin but profitable to continue once begun. The production of woodblock prints within a studio system was an involved process. It required the “ukiyo-e quintet” of the artist, block copyist, carver, printer, and publisher[15] collaborating (upon attaining approval from government censors first) to develop designs, which could then be reproduced by any publisher holding the woodblocks. Although the first legislation on copyright was not introduced in Japan until 1869[16], this meant that publishers (who owned the blocks) owned the copyright to prints for all intents and purposes; a right which they exploited to the fullest by creating reprints until the blocks wore and faded (as well as having carvers create copies of the original blocks)[17]. This led to the gradual decline in quality of reproduced prints.
The studio system which gave rise to these problems was critiqued as uncreative and somehow less than real art, by a modern woodblock printing movement called sōsaku-hanga (創作版画, creative prints). The sōsaku-hanga movement’s credo was “jiga, jikoku, jizuri” (自画 • 自刻 • 自摺; self-drawn, self-carved, self-printed), and it rejected studio-based woodblock printing as fukusei hanga (複製版画), or copy prints [18]. Between the art forgery aimed at swindling Western buyers, the profit motive of the printers (whose audience consisted of less affluent laypeople in the first place), and the students with radically different styles, the masters’ names would have been diluted several times over. Nonetheless, I decided to test specifying a particular school for the style of the output:
“The old mere! A frog jumping in The sound of water”. Japanese woodblock print, in the style of Utagawa School
The output was charming, but decidedly off the mark. In particular, some of the output was closer to clip art than traditional art. The word “School” may have been interpreted to mean that the artworks are intended for schoolchildren. The garish overuse of bright and ill-matched colour palettes give the impression that they were produced by inexperienced printmakers lacking in restraint. Such overindulgence in new pigments was a common response to the discovery of new colourants[19]. Yet, similar impulses attained heights of virtuosity in the hands of masters such as Hokusai and his Prussian Blue.
Another prompt, including the kanji for some words this time:
“The old mere! A frog jumping in The sound of water”. Japanese woodblock print (木版画), in the style of Utagawa (歌川) School
The output shifted closer to the desired result. However, the impact of the bijin-ga and shunga within the dataset was apparent in the rather human splaying of the legs and the composition resembling a bedroom more than a pond. Several of the Utagawa school’s masters, including the founder Utagawa Toyoharu (歌川 豊春, c. 1735 – 1814), produced numerous works featuring bijin and theatre actors. Their influence was showing through in the output.
Here, I replaced the Utagawa School in the prompt with the Hokusai School:
“The old mere! A frog jumping in The sound of water”. Japanese woodblock print (木版画), in the style of Hokusai (北斎) School
Specifying Hokusai instead of Utagawa resolved the problem of erotic frog art. The monochromatic images show the influence of the aizuri-e (藍摺絵, blue printed pictures) which Hokusai produced using Prussian Blue, a pigment introduced during the 1820s. Hokusai enthusiastically participated in the “blue revolution” [20] brought on by the introduction of the pigment. His Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (begun between 1830 and 1832) are his masterworks in the genre. The famous Great Wave off Kanagawa is among them.
However, the images demonstrate fading and a dullness of hue, limitations specific to the preexisting natural blue pigments (indigo and dayflower blue) to which Prussian Blue presented a superior alternative [21]. This suggests that DALL-E has a limited and stereotyped understanding of Hokusai’s work. I did not want to limit my experiment to monochrome prints if they were also poor representations of the subgenre. Given that specifying the names of multiple artists in English only had yielded the best results thus far (in balancing accuracy and aesthetic variety), and that including the original Japanese poem seemed effective, as did specifying the medium in both English and kanji, I formulated this prompt:
“The old mere! A frog jumping in The sound of water”. (古池や蛙飛び込む水の音). Japanese woodblock print (木版画), style of Kitagawa Utamaro, style of Katsushika Hokusai, style of Utagawa Hiroshige, style of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, style of Hashiguchi Goyo
While the output routinely deviated from woodblock prints towards paintings, I found them to be beautiful. I decided to test out one more minor detail before “freezing” the prompt template and moving onto testing the alternate translations; I replaced the parentheses around Basho’s original poem with kagikakko (鉤括弧; hook brackets), and added a Japanese full stop (句点; kuten):
“The old mere! A frog jumping in The sound of water”. 「古池や蛙飛び込む水の音」。Japanese woodblock print (木版画), style of Kitagawa Utamaro, style of Katsushika Hokusai, style of Utagawa Hiroshige, style of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, style of Hashiguchi Goyo
The result was a substantive reduction in quality and accuracy of the output. Furthermore, the output seemed to feature coloured pencil drawings and watercolour paintings hanging on walls and pin boards. The likely reason is not far to seek: reading, writing, and creating art based on haiku is a well-established tradition in Japan for not only adults but children as well. In the West, children’s haiku only gained popularity in the 60s and 70s[22], although it is also well-established by now. The result is that the Japanese punctuation marks resulted in output based on Japanese children’s art about Basho’s Frog Haiku. It was a copy of a copy: the master woodblock printers who had learned their masters’ style, whose students and hired workers followed to mass produce prints, which were passed down and copied by Japanese school children, whose works were ingested and compressed by the machine learning model, and probabilistically reassembled into an image based on the contents of the textual prompt. At the time of my writing, opinion on the impact of punctuation varies amongst AI artists. In this case, it had demonstrated a striking effect.
I decided that I had enough information about the formulation of the prompts to commit to freezing the prompt template:
“{translation}” (古池や蛙飛び込む水の音). Japanese woodblock print (木版画), style of Kitagawa Utamaro, style of Katsushika Hokusai, style of Utagawa Hiroshige, style of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, style of Hashiguchi Goyo
V. One Hundred Frogs
Below are selected AI artworks which I generated with DALL-E using the combination of each translation and the prompt template.
For the translations, I relied on the collection presented by Sato in his landmark anthology, One Hundred Frogs. I generated the output several times in some cases, but only selected one image per prompt to present in this article.
My selection criterion was whether the artwork moved me aesthetically when viewed alongside the translation used in its prompt, or was interesting in some other way. I present them with various art critical commentary, as well as my own interpretations, which are neither factual nor scientific but instead represent a case study involving one artist.
Frog 1 (transl. Masaoka Shiki)
The old mere!
A frog jumping in
The sound of water
A frog leaps into the image from the left; a gentle and polite little animal, its eyes are relaxed and curious. It tilts its head ever so slightly as it marvels at the dreamlike scene. The water is dotted with light tonight. Perhaps they are paper lanterns lit by festivalgoers, guiding the deceased to the afterlife. A pine tree stretches inward, as though to shield the precious moment from wind and rain.
Frog 2 (transl. Lafcadio Hearn)
Old pond—frogs jumped in—sound of water.
A translation of the poem featuring more than one frog is a rarity. There is much debate surrounding the precise scene depicted. While historical circumstances place Basho at his second hut (gifted to him by a fisherman disciple, replacing the first one which burned down), suggesting that the frogs were indeed present at the faithful moment of the poem’s completion, there is little reason to suspect that the poem was conceived of whilst he listened to the frogs, which usually appear in groups.
Frog 3 (transl. W. G. Aston)
An ancient pond!
With a sound from the water
Of the frog as it plunges in.
The word “ancient” seems to be an important keyword for DALL-E. Its inclusion caused human figures to appear much more often, and these figures frequently blended together with the frog in the image into one entity. They appear to be from an earlier era than the printmakers cited in the prompt, by several centuries. Here, a man or a woman dressed as a frog is intently focused on writing something with a calligraphy brush (a haiku, no doubt).
Frog 4 (transl. Basil Hall Chamberlain)
The old pond, aye! and the sound of a frog leaping into the
water.
The juxtaposition of the little frog and the plants in various stages of wilting and blooming is reminiscent of Ohara Koson, famous for his observant prints of plants and gentle animals, often rendered against a minimal or blank background. But the busy framing of the scene takes away from the tenderness of the subject matter, as though the image is uncertain about where one ought to focus.
Frog 5 (transl. Clara A. Walsh)
An old-time pond, from off whose shadowed depth
Is heard the splash where some lithe frog leaps in.
The translation returned rather wobbly and underdefined shapes. Here is a frog which appears more like a yokai than a typical amphibian. He seems to feel a little out of place as he looks around with that big eye of his. The playful lines of the lotus leaves evoke the echoing sound of water.
Frog 6 (transl. William J. Porter)
Into the calm old lake
A frog with flying leap goes plop !
The peaceful hush to break.
The frog leaps into the pitch-black night sky, becoming a part of it but for a moment, as the lotus flower beneath is a part of the pond.
Frog 7 (transl. Gertrude Emerson)
Old pond, aye! and the sound of a frog jumping in.
A frog lays flat atop a mossy boulder, as a boat floats by in the background. A blue tapestry stands against a tree to the left. The scene, with its flat perspective and a conspicuous lack of colour and detail, leaves much to the imagination. It looks as though the boat has capsized and its contents have spilled out, floating helplessly alongside the waterlogged boat. Perhaps the frog is a samurai who has narrowly survived drowning, and the tapestry is the heraldry of its clan.
Frog 8 (transl. Yone Noguchi)
The old pond
A frog leapt into—
List, the water sound!
Two children observe an enormous frog. The older child carefully pushes aside the overgrown grass as his younger sibling peeps out from behind a rock. The details of the printing and the censor’s seal are visible to the left of the image, but are not legible. Perhaps it depicts an old fairytale about an ancient frog which could transform into a human being, so old and powerful was the frog. Would the frog have promised the children a wish in exchange for keeping its existence a secret?
Frog 9 (transl. Curtis Hidden Page)
A lonely pond in age-old stillness sleeps …
Apart, unstirred by sound or motion … till
Suddenly into it a lithe frog leaps.
This translation seemed to activate a “nightmare vision” in the model, and consistently produced images resembling horror-film stills and black metal album covers. Several were actually in the shape of album covers, complete with the title and the artist’s name. Between the distorted photographs of water, a creature I call “Demon Frog” began showing up in the output. This is unfortunate given that the translation itself is beautiful.
Frog 10 (transl. Inazo Nitobe)
Into an old pond
A frog took a sudden plunge,
Then is heard a splash.
The frog is concentrating hard as it rides the tiny wave on top of a surfboard made of an empty egg. It’s causing quite a stir as it plunges about in the old pond. I can imagine this printed on a hand-held fan to be used in summer.
Frog 11 (transl. John Thomas Bryan)
There is the old pond!
Lo, into it jumps a frog :
hark, water’s music!
This frog is about to sail out on a dried leaf. I admire the determined look on its face as it sets about, holding firmly onto the grab rails. Judging by the title on the top right of the page, this is part six (六) of its adventure: an experienced traveler.
Frog 12 (transl. Asataro Miyamori)
The old pond!
A frog has plunged—
The splash!
Two frogs rise from a bed made of a flower, one still hugging a pillow of petal as the other stretches its legs. The streaky and uneven application of the colours and the awkward composition are made up for by the emotionally observant depiction of the frogs engaged in inconsequentially human acts.
Frog 13 (transl. Asataro Miyamori)
Into the calm old pond
A frog plunged—then the splash.
Yet another frog with its own surfboard, this time made of a dried lotus leaf. It seems rather proud of its fancy board as it paddles forward with its head held up. It must be swimming over to join the earlier surfing frog from Inazo Nitobe’s translation.
Frog 14 (transl. Asataro Miyamori)
The Old Pond
The ancient pond!
A frog plunged—splash!
There are many folktales in East Asia involving kind-hearted people whose charity toward animals is repaid in gold and silver. The animals sometimes gift their saviour with a magical artefact which looks like an ordinary household object but produces treasure when used. Here, this child has been gifted rice hullers that give golden coins instead of hulling rice. Perhaps she made a little pond for the frogs, saving them from drying out in the hot summer sun.
Frog 15 (transl. Asataro Miyamori)
The old pond! A frog plunged—
The sound of the water!
A wistful frog looks up into the starry night sky. The sound of a frog plunging into water nearby reminds it of home. Irises bloom modestly in the background, in front of a hut atop a hill resembling a bento lunchbox wrapped in patterned cloth. The frog recounts a story to cheer itself up; about a magic tablecloth which can always take it back home to see its friends and family, no matter how far it has ventured.
Frog 16 (transl. Hidesaburo Saito)
Old garden lake!
The frog thy depth doth seek,
And sleeping echoes wake.
The hazy, faded print and the green outlines of this image make it look like an illustration accompanying a Western medieval fairytale, included as part of an anthology of abridged stories. This blind frog is wise, if not magical, and I would treat it with respect if I encountered it.
Frog 17 (transl. Minoru Toyoda)
An ancient pond!
A frog leaps in;
The sound of the water!
I adore the way this image is framed. The stillness of the lily pads; the dynamism of the leaping frog; the soft shape of the pond into which it is jumping; the stars scattered across the water’s surface. Could this be the frog’s point of view, as it leaps into its own reflection in the old pond?
Frog 18 (transl. Harold G. Henderson)
An ancient pond;
Plash of the water
When a frog jumps in.
One frog approaches another from behind in this sparse scene of a pond. The writing is illegible, save for the last character (木, tree). It was common practice to include poems as part of woodblock prints. Perhaps this one is about a tree.
Frog 19 (transl. Fumiko Saisho)
Fu-ru (old) i-ke (pond) ya, ka-wa-zu (frog) to-bi-ko-mu (jumping into) mi-zu (water) no o-to (sound)
This eccentric transliteration consistently produced delightful output. This is my favourite little guy I generated. I call him “Frug” because he is flat like a rug. He is an affluent frog who lives in a rich man’s warehouse, surrounded by all manner of luxuries including expensive works of art and delicacies, with nary a care in the world!
Frog 20 (transl. Inazo Nitobe)
An old pond—
A frog jumps in—
A splash of water.
This humble frog doesn’t mind that its pond is so small. It jumps in gratefully, and creates a tiny little splash in the process.
Frog 21 (transl. Daisetz T. Suzuki)
Into the ancient pond
A frog jumps
Water’s sound!
The word “ancient” seems to be a reliable keyword for invoking classical styles. In this case, this frog deity levitating above the world is reminiscent of the Frog Buddha which appears in the Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga (鳥獣人物戯画, lit. Animal-person Caricatures; Animal Scrolls), produced in the late Heian Period.
Frog 22 (transl. R. H. Blyth)
The old pond.
A frog jumps in—
Plop!
A shy and timid frog watches a boisterous and daring frog plunge into the pond. It is hesitant but excited to join in, even though it is not usually so outgoing. A friendship to cherish forever.
Frog 23 (transl. Kenneth Yasuda)
Ancient pond unstirred
Into which a frog has plunged,
A splash was heard.
The vibrant and expansive backdrop of bright gold, speckled throughout with geometric decorations, is reminiscent of Gustav Klimt during his “Golden Phase”. The art historical connection itself is not far to seek, as Klimt was a famous Japanophile whose obsession with Japanese art influenced his own work. However, the directionality of influence is reversed here: a Japanese woodblock print, by a printmaker influenced by Klimt.
Frog 24 (transl. R. H. Blyth)
The old pond;
A frog jumps in,—
The sound of the water.
A crumpled pile of kimono, beneath a cherry blossom tree, presented alongside a poem about a frog (a spring season word), make the erotic nature of the scene all too apparent.
Frog 25 (transl. G. S. Fraser)
The old pond, yes!
A frog jumping in.
The water’s noise!
The childlike image shows a watermelon-patterned frog gazing out at the sea from atop a cliff, like a tiny and awkward Wanderer above the Sea of Fog. It seems to depict the pond as the frog experiences it: a vast and torrential ocean.
Frog 26 (transl. G. S. Fraser)
The old pond, yes, and
A frog-jumping-in-the-
Water’s noise!
G. S. Fraser’s variants of this particular translation resulted in a surprising variety of output. In this humorous and simplistic scene, a humanoid frog (clearly a vassal to a frog king of some kind) visits a regular frog to deliver a decree. It’s probably been announced that all frogs must wear proper clothing and use cutlery when eating flies, so as to not embarrass the court by acting impolite.
Frog 27 (transl. G. S. Fraser)
Old pond, yes, and
Frog-jump-in-
Water’s noise!
The lines of this print are sharp and crisp with little sign of wear and tear. This suggests it is an earlier imprint created using a newly carved block. The frog is smoking a pipe and contemplating a bridge which leads west to a pagoda, in reference to India and Central Asia, from which Buddhism spread into East Asia.
Frog 28 (transl. G. S. Fraser)
Old pond, yes, and
Frog jump in!
Water’s noise!
The browned paper and the sharp outlines surrounding matte colours give this image a modern feel. An overflowing river and trees bending to the wind take up the majority of the frame, yet the scene feels barren. It isn’t clear whether we could hear the frog over the wind and the water, were it to jump into the water right now.
Frog 29 (transl. Donald Keene)
The ancient pond
A frog leaps in
The sound of the water.
Printmakers would sometimes incorporate accompanying text directly into the pictures, such as by using the letters to decorate parts of it, or by blending the strokes of the characters into objects. This influence sometimes shows through in the output. However, this image looks more like a map. It is reminiscent of the Carta Marina, famous for the illustrations of sea monsters between its meticulously charted masses of land.
Frog 30 (transl. Donald Keene)
The ancient pond, a frog jumps in, the sound of the water.
A roiling stream coarses through the image. The currents grow larger as they approach the viewer and add depth to the scene. Four frogs swim beneath the surface, their silhouettes playfully gliding about.
Frog 31 (transl. Kenneth Rexroth)
An old pond—
The sound
Of a diving frog.
This tiny frog resembles a fragile creature like an aphid or a jumping spider. It lifts itself and prepares to hop, its innocent eyes in awe at the way the bamboo tree towers over the pond.
Frog 32 (transl. Peter Beilenson)
OLD DARK SLEEPY POOL …
QUICK UNEXPECTED
FROG
GOES PLOP! WATERSPLASH!
A sleepy frog jolts awake as it falls backward into a pool of water. See its stunned expression as it wiggles its arms and legs about, grasping in vain at the branch it was sleeping on until a moment before. It’s adorable.
Frog 33 (transl. Harold G. Henderson)
Old pond:
frog jump-in
water-sound.
The colourful, grainy texture of this image comes not from woodblock prints but from scanners which were used to scan some of the prints. While such artefacts are avoided by photographers and cleaned up in post (not to mention being a common use case for AI-assisted photo restoration), it adds a sentimental ambience to the artwork here.
Frog 34 (transl. Harold G. Henderson)
Old-pond : frog jump-in : water-sound
According to one folktale, there lived two frogs: one was a cultured frog from Kyoto; and the other was a rich frog from Osaka. They wished to see the rest of the world, and each decided to travel to the other city. They met atop a tall mountain halfway between. The frogs attempted to help one another get a better look at their respective destination by embracing, so that they could both stand tall on their hindlegs. However, being silly frogs, they didn’t realise that their eyes were now pointing at the direction from which they hailed; disappointed that Kyoto and Osaka were apparently identical, they both returned home and never traveled again.
Frog 35 (transl. Harold G. Henderson)
Old pond—
and a frog-jump-in
water-sound
The snaking river and the mountain in the distance gives this image a sense of perspective. It appears to be a view of Mount Fuji with its snow-capped tip in the distance. The focus on the frogs crossing the river and the bamboo trees positioned in front of the sunset and the mountain downplays the significance of the scenery. It’s unclear whether it pays off for the artwork as a whole; the rocks peeking out from the river, however, suggest an appreciation for mundane details which might have seemed artificial if expressed with the frogs alone.
Frog 36 (transl. The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science)
The old pond!
A frog jumps in—
Sound of the water.
An orange sun sets between the trees like a ripe persimmon, with a frog watching lazily. A tranquil sight.
Frog 37 (transl. Hiroshi Takamine)
Oh, into the old pond
A frog plunged,
With a splash!
(And once again calm prevails!)
This translation proved to be quite volatile, and produced unpredictable output with a lot of variety. Unlike one of the earlier translations that kept producing anthropomorphic frogs in an art style of an earlier period, this translation produced anthropomorphic frogs in a more modern style.
Frog 38 (transl. Anonymous)
Ancient pond;
frog jumps in;
sound of water.
A mousey little frog paddles toward a log in this plain looking monochrome print. Bamboo trees lean in, thin and soft, gently encouraging the small animal.
Frog 39 (transl. Cid Corman)
old pond
frog leaping
splash
A tragic scene: a bird’s egg falls to the ground, its contents splashing everywhere. The frog leaps to its feet, but there is nothing it can do.
Frog 40 (transl. Daisetz T. Suzuki)
The old pond, ah!
A frog jumps in:
The water’s sound.
D. T. Suzuki was a major populariser of Zen in the West and a military apologist for Imperial Japan. The translation was unreliable in producing good output, but this one stood out to me. It is a perspectival trick which frames the scene from above a hill, the moment captured right as a frog jumps toward the cat from behind. A frog swims up toward a night sky, full of not only stars but lily pads with other frogs sitting on them as well. A cat watches from beneath in awe and wonder. To connect the beautiful image and the translation with the historical background of the translator here would be tactless. The frog reminds me of Chagall’s paintings of magical farm animals, many of whom could fly effortlessly.
Frog 41 (transl. Harold Stewart)
The old green pond is silent; here the hop
Of a frog plumbs the evening stillness: plop!
The image is almost entirely made up of greens. The frog and the flowers bring the viewer’s focus not by the use of many colours but by their absence; their plainness stands out against the vibrant green. The use of the same colours for the flowers and the frog seems to point out that the frog is to the pond what the flower is to the whole of the plant, and hints at the theme of interconnectedness behind the poem itself.
Frog 42 (transl. Shunkichi Akimoto)
Into the old pond
Leaps a frog
Lo, the sound of the water.
This frog is a standard-bearer. Perhaps he is accompanying a battalion for a king or a general as they march into battle, ensuring that the position of the army can be seen from afar by its commander. “Lo, the sound of the water,” as the battling frogs leap about in the pond.
Frog 43 (transl. Peter Beilenson and Harry Behn)
AN OLD SILENT POND …
INTO THE POND
A FROG JUMPS,
SPLASH! SILENCE AGAIN.
This was another translation which proved unstable, frequently generating messy and poor images. This output was intriguing to me. A zen garden can be seen beneath a toad-green moon, with not only the usual island of rock but also several lily pads and lotus flowers in bloom. The Japanese dry gardens were a medieval invention, and were highly curated representations of nature. The lotus flower is another Buddhist symbol; it is said that they bloomed everywhere the young Gautama Buddha stepped when he took his first steps. Here, lotus flowers have appeared in the sands of a dry garden, an equally impossible event. Perhaps it shows the aftermath of a monk having attained enlightenment amidst gardening duty, walking away from it for the mosses to take over.
Frog 44 (transl. Edward G. Seidensticker)
The quiet pond
A frog leaps in,
The sound of the water.
What appears to be a Kinugasa flying frog pushes a half-bloomed lotus flower down the stream. The composition of the image itself is reminiscent of cover designs in modern Buddhist magazines (the use of Buddhist symbols like the lotus flower, and the use of empty space). Frogs are not particularly common in Buddhist literature. When they do appear, usually as a devout Buddhist listening in on a monk’s lecture, they play the role of a lesser creature whose lowly station makes their devotion to the Buddha’s words all the more impressive. Here this frog pushes a half-bloomed lotus flower down the stream, symbolising the birth and expression of the Buddha’s teaching, helped along not only by impressive and grand gestures of great kings and patrons but also the ordinary and smaller folk.
Frog 45 (transl. Dion O’Donnol)
While the modernistic translation makes use of rotated text to emulate the motion of a jumping frog with its final line, I had to settle for the extensively hyphenated chunk of text without the rotation when I inputted it into DALL-E. It was not especially reliable as a prompt, but produced this image of a boatman frog amidst a beautiful field of aquatic plants.
Frog 46 (transl. Harry Behn)
An old silent pond …
A frog jumps into the pond,
splash! Silence again.
The word “silent” seems to introduce instability to the output, resulting in a lowered quality of artworks produced. However, instability also provides the additional variety that leads to wonderful accidents like the blue frogs seen here.
Frog 47 (transl. Geoffrey Bownas and Anthony Thwaite)
An old pond
A frog jumps in—
Sound of water.
Winter is rare in the output produced by the Frog Haiku. But commentators sometimes cite Bashō’s use of a jumping frog as opposed to a croaking frog as a subtle deviation from the convention of using frogs as a summer word; at the end of winter, hibernating frogs wake and break the thinning ice on the surface of the pond.
Frog 48 (transl. Masaru V. Otake)
The old pond,
Frog jumps in—
The sound of water.
A plump, spotted frog looks up at a sky full of expensive objects. Decorative shoes and a fish made of silk; neatly rolled up scrolls; a lacquered table. It’s a prosperous image.
Frog 49 (transl. Nobuyuki Yuasa)
Breaking the silence
Of an ancient pond,
A frog jumped into water—
A deep resonance.
This frog appears to be looking directly at the viewer, its cheeky expression and glinting eye suggesting that it will enjoy breaking the silence of the ancient pond.
Frog 50 (transl. Scott Alexander)
By an ancient pond
a bullfrog sits on a rock
waiting for Basho?
The arrangement of the porous rock and the manicured branches suggest that this is a carefully maintained garden pond. The pond itself seems to be covered in a thin layer of ice, placing the scene somewhere between winter and spring.
Frog 51 (transl. Sylvia Cassedy and Kunihiro Suetake)
Old pond, blackly still—
frog, plunging into water,
splinters silent air.
The translation did not result in many notable artworks, and some of the resulting frogs were rather unsightly. The best images of the lot tended to be minimalistic sketches with a childlike lack of skill.
Frog 52 (transl. Sylvia Cassedy and Kunihiro Suetake)
Old pond:
frog jump in
water-sound.
A flute-patterned frog hops onto a flute-shaped bamboo tree. Bamboo leaves bristle in the wind above, helping to make visual the musical sound of the wind.
Frog 53 (transl. Dion O’Donnol)
The silent old pond
a mirror of ancient calm,
a frog-leaps-in splash …
This translation, featuring both the words “silent” and “ancient”, predictably resulted in an unstable array of output which left much to be desired in the way of artistic interest. This image stood out in particular because it veered far too closely toward photography compared to the rest.
Frog 54 (transl. Anonymous)
The old pond.
A frog jumps into the water—
SPLASH.
This frog is looking up at the sky with a pleading expression. Both in Japan and Korea, frogs are thought to be able to predict the future, because they croak before rainfall. According to a famous Korean folktale (a variant of a Chinese folktale), there was a disobedient frog who always did the opposite of what his mother told him to do. One day, she asked him to bury her at the river bank when she died, hoping that he would disobey her and bury her on a sunny hill instead. But the frog was so struck with grief upon her death that he respected her wish instead. From that day on, whenever it rained, the frog would cry and plead at the sky to stop: he was worried that the rain would wash his mother’s grave away. The term cheong-gaeguri (청개구리, “green frog”) is a popular turn of phrase used to this day by Korean parents to describe rebellious children, because the frog in the folktale was said to be green.
Frog 55 (transl. Edward Bond)
Silent old pool
Frog jumps
Kdang!
Curiously, this translation produced numerous frogs riding on various long and flat objects such as carpets, boards, rocks, leaves, and kites.
Frog 56 (transl. Cana Maeda)
old pond
a frog in-leaping
water-note
A pensive frog is deep in thought, resting its chin on an arm and its eyes looking to the bottom right. It’s said that people look to the bottom right when they’re recalling some sensory or emotional experience. Perhaps this frog is contemplating the sound of the water.
Frog 57 (transl. G. S. Fraser)
The old pond, yes, and
A frog is jumping into
The water, and splash.
A frog clasps its hands together as it readies for a skillful dive. I wonder what the scroll hanging from the branch reads. Perhaps it’s a swimming competition. The morphological similarity of the frog to humans, particularly when diving and swimming, must have made it easy to anthropomorphise. In the West, frogs and toads were sometimes depicted as religious congregations, variously holy and heretical. Frogs have occasionally been depicted as clergy in Japan also.
Frog 58 (transl. G. S. Fraser)
Old pond, yes, and
Frog jumping into
The water’s noise.
A labyrinth stretches across the background of this otherwise simplistic scenery. The concept of a labyrinth is not endemic to East Asia, instead being imported by Jesuits as a curiosity, occasionally constructed for the amusement of royals. It was understood by the Asian audience as a special class of gardens (the winding movement of the explorers of a labyrinth was deemed similar to a garden walk), and akin to a palace on a more abstract level (palaces are sprawling complexes of walls and buildings). Here, instead of the labyrinth, only some clouds are reflected in the water; a humorous comparison between a labyrinth and a garden, evidently not quite the same thing.
Frog 59 (transl. G. S. Fraser)
Old pond, yes,
Frog there jumping,
Water’s noise.
A lonesome frog looks up at the moon and sees its beloved. It was believed by some cultures that the moon controls the passage of time, as the lunar calendar depended on the movement of the moon. In some pacific cultures, it was traditional for people to throw spears at the moon to hasten its movement in order to bring back friends who had left home for work or travel. In some East Asian myths, the moon would send wives to lonely but virtuous bachelors; it would sometimes take them back, causing the grieving husband to watch it with longing, night after night. The perfectly formed character on the top right of this image simply reads 目 (“eye”).
Frog 60 (transl. Armando Martins Janeira)
Ah, the old pond
A frog jumps in
Sound of water.
Here is another winter scene, complete with falling snow and a chubby frog scurrying along to get away from the freezing cold. Perhaps it awoke a little too soon from hibernation.
Frog 61 (transl. Makoto Ueda)
The old pond—
A frog leaps in,
And a splash.
An affluent merchant frog waits for its customers with some choice products laid out on the storefront. It’s selling some fish it caught, surely a delicacy for land creatures.
Frog 62 (transl. William J. Higginson)
Old pond …
a frog leaps in
water’s sound.
This dainty little friend looks familiar. It’s the mousey frog, who seems to be one of the recurring characters in the AI haiku art world. It’s watching a sunrise as it relaxes under the artificial waterfall made of hollowed out bamboo with its friend, the hot spring monkey.
Frog 63 (transl. Robert H. Brower)
The ancient pond;
A frog jumps in—
The sound of water.
This plump, pistachio coloured frog covered with white dots is yet another recurring character. It seems to enjoy sitting and looking at the pond, preferably beneath the shade of a large leaf. The word “ancient” seems to invoke it with some reliability, as the shape and pattern of its body is similar to ancient Japanese clothing worn by aristocrats.
Frog 64 (transl. William Howard Cohen)
Mossy pond;
frog leaping in—
splash!
A sheet of clear water wraps around the frog as it breaks the surface of the pond. The shape of its body is barely visible, mostly a green blur save for the eye. The sense of speed depicted here is certainly innovative if not entirely anachronistic.
Frog 65 (transl. Kenjun Ikeda)
The old pond!
A frog jumps in
With splash-splosh.
Three frogs consider the pond with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Perhaps they are the same frog at different stages of splash-sploshing.
Frog 66 (transl. Daniel C. Buchanan)
Into the old pond
A frog suddenly plunges.
The sound of water.
The exaggerated dynamism of the frog as its tongue whips out in an arc makes it almost look like the scene was captured with a fisheye lens. A shallower depth of field like this, with the objects in the background given far less attention than the closer object, is atypical of the medium. It makes the image look more like a frame of a stylised animation than a woodblock print.
Frog 67 (transl. Dorothy Britton)
Listen! a frog
Jumping into the stillness
Of an ancient pond!
A full moon shines in a cloudless night sky as a frog of the same colour admires it. On a leaf to the left, a droplet of water glistens like a jewel; the oval shapes of the leaves, the droplet, and the moon draw the eye from the bottom left to the centre, then to the frog, then to the droplet again, forming a perfect triangle between the three foci.
Frog 68 (transl. Joan Giroux)
An old pond
A frog jumps in
The sound of the water.
Vivid spots of white flowers stand out against the otherwise dark image. The numerous lotus leaves and the yellow frog are diminished in a tasteful way.
Frog 69 (transl. Alfred H. Marks)
The old pond:
A frog jumps in,—
The sound of the water
See the joyous expression on this frog’s face as it admires the autumnal sunset. The dash of pink blush across its face completes the playful scene.
Frog 70 (transl. Alfred H. Marks)
There once was a curious frog
Who sat by a pond on a log
And, to see what resulted,
In the pond catapulted
With a water-noise heard round the bog.
This image depicts a stolid creature that resembles a toad more than it does a frog. In Korea and Japan, round rock formations were often named the “toad rock” of a village or a mountain, and regarded with reverence for their power to decide the luck of those who lived nearby. There are even records of villagers waging battle over which direction a toad rock should face, because it was sometimes believed that the village to the direction of its rear would prosper and the village to its mouth would suffer from unfaithful wives.
Frog 71 (transl. Robert Aitken)
Old pond ! / Frog jumps in / Water ‘s sound
An adorable little frog sits on a butterbur leaf. Judging by the plants (they aren’t aquatic) and the shape of the waves, this is a flood. The grainy texture of the print suggests that the ink was not applied correctly by the printmaker, resulting in slippage and poor transfer.
Frog 72 (transl. Robert Aitken)
The old pond;
A frog jumps in,—
The sound of the water.
A travelling scholar on his way to Hanyang (한양, the capital of medieval Korea) for a bureaucratic examination has come across an enormous frog. The frog is no doubt a magical creature, with a problem which the scholar must resolve through his own wit and moral goodness. This is a common motif in many Korean folktales, and is distinguished from Japanese monster stories and kaidan (怪談) by the neo-Confucian moral lessons they imparted. Kaidan on the other hand were inspired by samurai Buddhism: used as part of story-trading games such as Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai (百物語怪談会, lit. “A Gathering of One Hundred Supernatural Tales”), which tested the participants’ courage, they were intended to be frightening and thus did not always contain discrete moral lessons (the story-trading games, of course, were moralistic in nature insofar as they promoted courage and community amongst the players). The game and the stories were both a common subject matter for printmaking masters, who produced many scenes of nightmarish encounters with the supernatural based on the stories.
Frog 73 (transl. Robert Aitken)
The old pond has no walls.
The frog simply jumped in,
And his sound does not echo at all.
The thought-terminating cliche about dissecting frogs and explaining jokes belies the fact that the greatest masters of every craft, not the least comics and satirists, study and explain to one another their favourite works. Haiku writing is another such tradition. The collaborative nature of haiku encouraged poetry written in direct response to other poems, and having the contextual information explained is sometimes essential to the enjoyment of a poem.
Frog 74 (transl. Felix-Marti Ibanez)
The old pond!
A frog jumps:
Sound of water!
The reflected moon envelopes a frog like a halo. A halo was traditionally depicted in Eastern art as a form of fire, with flames and light; in Western art, it was depicted as a holy glow. Is the reflection intrinsic to the pond, or the moon? The same question is asked through the poem itself: is the sound of the water intrinsic to the pond, or the frog?
Frog 75 (transl. Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto)
Old pond,
leap-splash—
a frog.
A frog considers the long journey across the pond, marked by a trail of lily pads. Its eyes are determined.
Frog 76 (transl. Robert Aitken)
The old pond;
A frog jumps in—
The sound of the water.
A humorous scene featuring Frug, a recurring character in this series. He admires the full moon in the clear evening sky. It is bright and round, shaped just like the frog.
Frog 77 (transl. Robert Aitken)
(word-for-word)
Old pond!
frog jumps in
water of sound
This translation is labelled “word-for-word”. Its almost-correct grammar seems to be a little confusing for the model, which responded by generating more human figures, bright colours, and frogs with distorted shapes.
Frog 78 (transl. Robert Aitken)
The old pond has no walls;
A frog just jumps in;
Do you say there is an echo?
The model seems to think that baby frogs are small, pale, and delicate versions of the green and sharp adult frogs. I can see why it would think that, given how nicely the combination looks in the images.
Frog 79 (transl. Earl Miner)
The still old pond
and as a frog leaps in it
the sound of a splash
The lily pads continue beyond the bounds of the pond, sprawling into both the sky and the ground. The moon hangs low amongst the plants, its perfectly circular shape suggesting that this is not a reflection. The distinction between the nominally separate entities is thus made ambiguous in an exaggerated manner, as with the case in the moment captured by Bashō in his poem.
Frog 80 (transl. Allen Ginsberg)
The old pond
A frog jumped in,
Kerplunk!
A diving frog sneaks toward koi with a fishing net, its determined gaze fixed on the unwitting fish. The translation produced several scenes with humorous narratives.
Frog 81 (transl. Earl Miner and Hiroko Odagiri)
The old pond is still
a frog leaps right into it
splashing the water
While frogs are unusual in Buddhist art, fish are much more common. The twin fish, originating from Babylonian mythology, was passed on through the Middle East and India into East Asia, where it was incorporated into temple art. Temples in East Asia are built out of wood, as were many of the treasures such as printing blocks containing scriptures. The use of aquatic animals in East Asian temple art reflected a wish to ward off fires and protect the treasures.
Frog 82 (transl. Yoko Danno)
Old-pond—a frog
leaps in
water sound
This was the only occurrence of a tadpole out of the approximately 2000 frogs which I generated throughout the research. The spotted pattern, particularly the white and green, was much more common.
Frog 83 (transl. Bill Deemer)
I enlightened Bashō,
recalled the Frog,
but he scared me!
A common motif in Buddhist legends is for an animal to skip the queue of rebirth through an act of exceptional piety, such as helping a monk reach enlightenment. This frog seems to have been reborn in a higher realm after helping to enlighten Bashō.
Frog 84 (transl. Bernard Lionel Einbond)
Antic pond—
frantic frog jumps in—
gigantic sound.
The child in blue taking a frog-dog (drog? Fruppy?) looks an awful lot like “Madeline”, by Ludwig Bemelmans. Needless to say, the children’s story from the late 1930s is anachronistic in this context.
Frog 85 (transl. Bernard Lionel Einbond)
Unable to sleep—
I imagine an old pond,
and a frog jumps in.
We are permitted a peek into a sleeping frog’s inner world as it dreams of flying through the pine trees in the moonlit night.
Frog 86 (transl. Ross Figgins)
1. After working with this for a while, I can’t resist a pun. I don’t
know the legitimacy of word plays in translations, but …
old pond,
frog jump in—
a sound question
This print appears to be incomplete, and painted over with a brush and acrylic paint. The brushstrokes of the flowers and the flat print of the frog garnish the coarsely textured fabric.
Frog 87 (transl. Bernard Lionel Einbond)
2. The next is an attempt to capture the sound by bracketing it between
the interrupted moments of silence. The ambiguity is intended.
old pond,
a frog leaps in—
a moment after, silence
Autumn leaves fall onto the rocks like so many flowers blooming out of a muddy pool. This frog can sense the cooling weather, and begins to prepare for the winter.
Frog 88 (transl. Bernard Lionel Einbond)
3. And finally a more literal interpretation.
old pond—
the sound
of a frog and water
A frog on holiday admires its garden from an engawa (縁側), a type of low veranda. The trees and the oiled paper umbrella provide shade from the blazing summer sun. The image has a “widescreen” aspect ratio (it is letterboxed between two rectangles). As a still image, it resembles a postcard (4” x 6”); however, it is not uncommon for contemporary video editors to sometimes introduce letterboxing into standard format footage in order to create a semblance of the video being produced for the big screen. The framing seems appropriate here.
Frog 89 (transl. wm Flygare)
ab-sence (samsara)
bare attention (satipatthana)
presence (nirvana)
In spite of the Japanese original being included alongside the English translation, the prompt did not reliably produce frogs. Perhaps this is a frog that transformed into a woman in order to marry into humanity.
Frog 90 (transl. wm Flygare)
the wordless Word:
a frog-pond plop
makes it heard.
A magical frog guides Bashō through the writing process, wielding a gigantic brush pen made of a bamboo tree. This is a representation of genius, in the Roman sense of the particular guiding spirits inherent in things, places, activities, phenomena. This must be the genius of haiku.
Frog 91 (transl. wm Flygare)
nay
yea
aye
Despite the original Japanese poem by Bashō being included in the prompt, This translation persistently produced fish (and fish-like creatures with legs) along with fishermen in ancient clothing. It was a baffling result. While fish were far more common than frogs in Buddhist art, it’s unclear what about the translation led the model to replace the frogs with fish.
Frog 92 (transl. wm Flygare)
?
!
.
Once again, fish and fishermen appeared in many of the output. This well-formed blue carp was quite the catch. The ultra-minimalistic translation by Flygare seems to have been confusing for the model; it’s hard to appreciate the humour when you don’t retain any memory of the previous 91 translations.
Frog 93 (transl. Lorraine Ellis Harr)
Mossy pond:
Plunging frog’s
water-blip.
A spotted frog sits on a log, in a pond full of fish and flowers. The shape of the pond frames them like a halo behind a sacred figure’s head might have done in a religious painting. A pond or a garden may well be a form of sculptural halo in the sense that they enable the technique of “borrowed scenery” in Chinese-influenced garden architectures, in which scenery is framed and presented for viewing by the features of a garden.
Frog 94 (transl. Lindley Williams Hubbel)
An old pond
A frog jumping
Sound of water
A ceramic painting shows a frog floating towards a snow-capped mountain on a block of ice. It may have awoken a little too early into springtime.
Frog 95 (transl. Lindley Williams Hubbel)
Oh thou unrippled pool of quietness
Upon whose shimmering surface, like the tears
Of olden days, a small batrachian leaps,
The while aquatic sounds assail our ears.
A mousey and gentle frog looks to the distance as a frog-coloured sun sets into the endless stretch of water. This is a not a pond but a lake or a river. The lotus flower was associated with the rebirth of day in Egypt (and the frog with fertility); here, they have closed for the night, and will bloom again at dawn.
Frog 96 (transl. Hisako Kanaseki)
an old pond:
noises of frogs
leaping in
Ethereal, almost translucent frogs swim in a pond beneath a hanging branch. While the ground is clearly visible in the bottom left corner, the pond itself is represented only by the aquatic plants and the swimming frogs. It makes you wonder whether Bashō could see the frogs as he was composing his poem; the question is still brought up from time to time in the discourse around the poem.
Frog 97 (transl. James Kirkup)
pond
frog
plop!
A forager frog has found a lotus flower. The cartoonish facial expression and the exaggerated movement of the legs mid-action bring out the buoyant personality in the character’s design. Every part of the lotus plant is either edible or used as a cooking ingredient, as well as for making tea. Judging by the size of the frog, this find will keep it fed for quite a while.
Frog 98 (transl. Frank Kuenstler)
Once upon a time there was a frog
Once upon a time there was a pond
Splash.
Two intelligent looking frogs consider a hilly path. The larger, older frog stares into the distance as the smaller, younger frog follows not far behind, carrying a pack made of straw. They are carrying uncurved swords, suggesting that the scene is set around the 10th Century prior to the curved, Mongol style swords displaced uncurved, Chinese style blades. Indeed, the translation places these frogs in the “once upon a time” period, and it can be inferred that this is a classical knight’s tale.
Frog 99 (transl. William Matheson)
Jumpe, jumpe, lyttle Frogge!
Water soundeth
All aroundeth
In thyss olde Bogge.
Sumo wrestling is one of the oldest sports in Japan. Champion rikishi (力士, professional sumo wrestlers) were celebrities, and the demand for images of the rikishi resulted in many woodblock prints. The influence is evident in this image of the sumo wrestler frog.
Frog 100 (transl. wm Flygare)
the universe …
a froglet moves it
listen! … …
Here is the lever long enough to move the world that Archimedes asked for. It has a frog for a fulcrum. The interpretation of the poem offered by this particular translation and image is clear: even a little frog can move the universe in some small way; one need only to listen to understand that every thing in the world has some capacity to move its own universe. Buddha nature is intrinsic not only to humans but to all living things, and to the ponds they live in, to the splash they create, to the listening, to the moving.
VI. Conclusion
The results of the experiment support the hypothesis that “prompts containing different translations of the same sentence will yield results from DALL-E that vary in some useful way for artists.” I found the variation in the output introduced by the translations intriguing and inspiring, not only in terms of new visual ideas but also as anchors for meditations on art history and aesthetics.
The utility of AI-generated art, like other tools useful to the artist, is not in “blurring the boundaries between art and non-art” or “raising questions about what art is”. These are tired questions that encourage a preemptive disengagement with what is actually new in aesthetic technology. They don’t require the participants to so much as engage with the new technology, but to merely place it into a preconceived framework. At the same time, the utility of AI-generated art is not merely that it enables them to do more with less time and effort. One way AI-generated art is truly novel is in its inversion of the relation between the artist and the art critic; art historical knowledge becomes essential for the artist, and they can no longer do without art criticism, because criticism is now part of the productive process of art. It thus augments the process of two-way translation between art and criticism; and art becomes criticism, and criticism becomes art.
At the same time, prompt engineering and generative art allows for what may be called a metamagical realist epistemology: just as search engines adapted to regular user behaviour (of anthropomorphising the search interface) over the years to no longer require “Google-fu” style syntactical tinkering, generative AI models can accommodate (and often excel with) naive, conversational prompting from their users; as AI facilitates the translation between magical thinking and machinic processing, magical thinking becomes a pragmatic necessity. When treating technology as magic is effective for its users, and that same technology reflexively adapts to further improve upon this interface, it is not technology which becomes indistinguishable from magic, but magic which becomes technology. Rather than the boundaries between art and non-art, such a development blurs the boundaries between the past and the future.
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