Kokinshu #129

[lnhammer]

Written on flowers floating down a stream while crossing the mountains near the end of the Third Month.

    When I follow
hither and yon the waters
    with scattered flowers,
I see that in the mountains
spring has also passed away.

—3 & 24 august 2011

Original by Kiyowara no Fukayabu, whose dates are unknown but he appears in court records through the first three decades of the 10th century; he has 17 poems in the Kokinshu. (Incidentally, his grandson, or possibly son, Motosuke was the father of Sei Shonagon.) Note the contrast, pointed up by their balanced placement, of water and mountain.


hana chireru
mizu no manimani
tomekureba
yama ni wa haru mo
nakunarinikeri

---L.

Comments

[lnhammer]

One speculation as to why the records disagree about son or grandson is that Motosuke was grandson by birth and then adopted by Fukayabu, possibly after his unknown father's death. There's no direct evidence for this, but it would explain the confusion.

---L.

[(Anonymous)]

I had no recollection of this poem at all. Really good one though. I don't know if this is correct, but I interpret tomeku as implying that the subject has *come to* somewhere (in search of something), which means that I see the structure here as more like: 3 lines of flower-and-water wandering reverie, then 1 line to bring us back to earth, and the final line as a realization that we are standing on a cold, silent mountain from which Spring is already gone.

Nice one on "hither and yon" for /manimani/, that's a thought-provoking take. --Matt

[lnhammer]

My initial draft translated tomeku as "come following," which sounds like translationese instead of English -- possibly I should explore expanding that a bit to something like "come here following" or "come here to follow." Similarly, I had "wherever they will (take them)" for manimani, but when I realized that it really applies to both the petals and the speaker, being carried and following, and went for "hither and yon" as encompassing both.

That's a good point about the structure of the original -- I've kinda obscured that with my version. Hmm.

---L.