Kanji Help Needed

[hddennis]

Granddaughter is giving her boyfriend a sword for xmas and wanted me to find out the kanji for “The perfect blossom is a rare thing” so she could paint that on the stand.

 

Could someone post the Kanji here in a form a non speaker could paint on a sword stand?

 

Thanks,

Howard Dennis

 

 

[ROKUJURO]

Howard,

 

someone without proper study of Japanese language and script cannot paint a phrase on whatever. It will look extremely ugly, so better leave it away.

[hddennis]

Thanks, My daughter will be doing it. She's one of the best art and antiques restorer I've ever seen so I have no doubt in her ability.

 

Howard Dennis

[Nobody]

If it is a phrase from The Last Samurai, corresponding natural Japanese may be “完璧な花にはなかなか出会えない。”. As it is a colloquial style, it can not be written in kanji only. You can express it with kanji in Chinese (or Classical Chinese?).

 

Anyway, I agree with Jean C.

[xiayang]

Even if one were to ignore the calligraphy aspect mentioned by Jean and Moriyama san, the trouble with this sort of request is that any sophistication or poetic connotations of the original almost never survive in a literal word-by-word translation.

 

11 hours ago, Nobody said:

You can express it with kanji in Chinese (or Classical Chinese?).

 

If I had to make a suggestion, I'd try to find an established 4-character idiom that more or less captures the sentiment you're trying to express.  In (classical) Chinese, perhaps something like 容華絕代?