Kokinshu #128

[lnhammer]

Written in the Third Month on having not heard the bush warbler's voice for a long time.

    Because the flowers
he tried to detain with song
    now are no more,
even the bush warbler must
have at last become listless.

—31 July 2011

Original by Ki no Tsurayuki. The lunisolar Third Month, roughly early-April to early-May, was the last month of spring. (In the headnote, I'm a little confused by hisashiu, an adjective with an unfamiliar ending I can't find in my grammar books -- hisashiku ("for a long time") would nicely orthodox, but all the texts I've checked have -u.)


naki-tomuru
hana shi nakereba
uguisu mo
hate wa monouku
narinuberanari

---L.

Comments

[starlady]

hisashiu sounds like it's a sound change from hisashiku, as happens as time goes on. I forget the Japanese term for the sound change, but it doesn't change the meaning.

[(Anonymous)]

Yup, this /-ku/ vs /-u/ is a classic Azuma:not-Azuma (so, especially, Kinki/Kansai dialect) difference. Dude is totally speaking proto-Kansai-ben.

(Arguably, Azuma/Kanto is the weird region for *not* adopting the /-u/ ending, given that we went along with similar developments like /-ki/ → /-i/ for the attributive form of adjectives. And not even the full weight of Tokyonormativity could keep stuff like ありがとう and おはよう out of "standard modern Japanese".)

[(Anonymous)]

p.s. (1) This was Matt, and (2) Do you think that the high ratio of nasal sounds in this poem is some kind of effect, or just a coincidence? If it's an effect, I haven't been able to figure out what it means (nasal = no warbling?!)

[lnhammer]

Is the -ku -> -u change for adjectives really that old? I had the impression that most of the onbin changes were Kamakura or later. (Admittedly, this text is a Teika recension ... )

With Tsurayuki, I figure it's a safe bet that sound patterns are always deliberate, especially if the poem isn't off-the-cuff -- but if it has any meaning aside from being harmonic, I haven't a clue. I may not be a hundred years too early to understand sonic mimesis, but I probably need more experience before I can follow it more clearly. (Mitsune, OTOH, I assume anything sound pattern is fortuitous coincidence.)

---L.

[(Anonymous)]

It probably had some funky propagation patterns, but you can see it in the Genji too at least. Here's a few I just searched up:

... この御方の御諫めをのみぞなほ _わづらはしう_ 心 _苦しう_ 思ひきこえさせたまひける。
... 今は亡き人とひたぶるに思ひなりなん」と _さかしう_ のたまひつれど ...
... 車引き出づるほどの、すこし _あかう_ なりぬるに、宮、うちよりまかでたまふ ...
... いとど人 _わろう_ かたくなになりはつるも ...

But く also appears, and there are overlaps -- there are a few examples of both 久しく見- and 久しう見-, for example. No super-obvious difference in usage between the two, but I didn't have time to look very deeply.

I don't know whether this represents later editors messing with the original text, or actual usage at the time. You can definitely imagine く hanging on as "the correct way" to write the form long after the spoken language had lenited to う, though.

[lnhammer]

Whee, that early. Right -- something for me to watch for. Thanks.

---L.