Kokinshu #168

[lnhammer]

Written on the last day of Sixth Month.

    On the path of the sky
where summer and autumn pass
    coming and going,
is there a refreshing breeze
that is blowing to one side?

—21 October 2011

(Original by Ôshikôchi no Mitsune.) The lunisolar Six Month (running roughly early-July to early-August), here called minatsuki, "waterless month," was the last month of summer. I'm not sure whether to understand the breeze as blowing "toward," "from," or "on" one side. And with that breeze, a poetic symbol of autumn, summer and this book come to a rapid end.

Book IV coming right up, covering the first half of autumn. Fair warning: leaves are to autumn what cherry blossoms are to spring, to wit, things that fall and scatter away -- and there are even more autumn than spring poems. Only a few more, but still.


natsu to aki to
yukikau sora no
kayoiji wa
katae suzushiki
kaze ya fukuramu

---L.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I once hurt someone's feelings pointing this out about kannazuki, but I feel that you are made of stronger stuff so I will just note that "Minazuki" (or tsuki) is written 水無月 (waterless month) but etymologically is cognate to 水の月, that is, "month of water". Word on the streets is that this in the lunar calendar this was the month when they irrigated the rice paddies, or something like that.

[lnhammer]

So something more like mi(zu)-no-tsuki? Huh. Well, you'd need to irrigate once the monsoonal rains go away.

---L.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, same pattern as in /minamoto/ (水の元), /minato/ (水の門), the surname Minaguchi (水の口), etc. I read a theory somewhere that /mi/ was the original word for water and /zu/ (actually /du/ at the time) was added later [for whatever reason] after these compounds were formed. --Matt

[lnhammer]

Interesting. Around what time would water have expanded like that, according to that theory?

---L.

[(Anonymous)]

Dunno, but it would have to have been very early, because we already have "mizu" in the Kojiki and so on. By Old Japanese, water on its own is almost always "mizu" and water in existing compounds is often "mi" (and not always at the start, either: izumi ← 出 + 水).