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Kokinshu #149
(Topic unknown.)
O cuckoo whose voice
is crying out yet whose tears
cannot be seen --
here, the sleeves of my robe are
soaking wet: do borrow them!
(I am really coming to resent how "cuckoo" comes nowhere near close to filling a metrical line the way hototogisu does. Ah, the decisions we hobble ourselves with ... )
koe wa shite
namida wa mienu
hototogisu
waga koromode no
hitsu o karanamu
---L.
O cuckoo whose voice
is crying out yet whose tears
cannot be seen --
here, the sleeves of my robe are
soaking wet: do borrow them!
—1 October 2011
(Original author unknown.) This is, of course, built by taking the "sing"/"weep" double-meaning of naku and spinning it out as something wittily over-the-top. Sleeves get soaked because that's what elegant people use to dab tears, and needing to display such elegance is an even more refined behavior -- which means we're indoors in the capital. While the speaker's ostensible generosity is admirable, this is possibly the most artificial poem so far.(I am really coming to resent how "cuckoo" comes nowhere near close to filling a metrical line the way hototogisu does. Ah, the decisions we hobble ourselves with ... )
koe wa shite
namida wa mienu
hototogisu
waga koromode no
hitsu o karanamu
---L.