Kokinshu #237
Tuesday, 24 April 2012 07:04![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnhammer Written when, on his way somewhere, he saw maidenflowers planted at someone's house.
O maidenflower,
ah! how troubling it is
to be seeing you
-- when you are standing alone
in a house gone to ruin.
ominaeshi
ushirometaku mo
mieru kana
aretaru yado ni
hitori tatereba
---L.
O maidenflower,
ah! how troubling it is
to be seeing you
-- when you are standing alone
in a house gone to ruin.
16 April 2012
Original by Prince Kanemi, son of Koretaka (see #74). Kanemi was born some time in the 860s, and held various court offices and governorships between 886 and his death in 932. He has five poems in the Kokinshu. ¶ The situation suggests he knew a woman at the house -- to allow for this, I went with a singular flower in the poem. In addition to the inverted sentence order, in that the second half would normally go first, the syntax in the first half is slightly tangled up. Much like the garden, I suppose. (Grammar note by the amused: in the headnote, the verb used indicates the "somewhere" the prince is going is of lower status than the one he left -- presumably his residence. Because classical Japanese has a whole array of honorific and humble verbs that can make such distinctions. Which I still need to memorize already.)ominaeshi
ushirometaku mo
mieru kana
aretaru yado ni
hitori tatereba
---L.