Waiata 5: He mea whakamāori, nā ngā Waiata a Wiremu Hākipia
A translation into Māori of William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 5
Ko te Taima, nāna i āta hanga
Te kanohi pīwari, e arohia ana e ngā kanohi katoa,
Ka tūkino kē ia i taua kanohi rā
Kia ātaahuakore haere te tino ātaahua o mua rā.
Ko Taima ihuoneone te ārahi
Raumati ki te hōtoke mākinakina, whakangaro ai;
Rākau mauri hukakapapatia,
Ngaro noa ngā rau hauora, mōwai tonu te whenua.
Mei kore ko tō Raumati iheuria
(He mauhere e noho whāiti ana i ngā tara karāehe)
Ngaro noa a Ātaahua me tōna hua,
Kia korekau ia me ōna kōrero e mōhiotia atu.
Engari, ahakoa te putiputi iheua e tūtaki ki a Takurua,
Ko te āhua noa ka hemo, ka ora reka tonu te mauri.
Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that unfair which fairly doth excel;
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter, and confounds him there;
Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o’er-snowed and bareness everywhere:
Then were not summer’s distillation left,
A prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty’s effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was:
But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.
Image: ‘Tarata, - Pittosporum eugenioides,’ Plate 9. From the book: The art album of New Zealand flora, 1889, Gisborne, by Sarah Featon, Bock & Cousins. Te Papa. Catalogue entry here.