Kokinshu #255
Saturday, 9 June 2012 08:12![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnhammer In the Jôgan era [859–877], there was a plum tree in front of the Ryôkiden [palace bathing chambers]. Written when some courtiers were composing poems on a branch on the the west side of the tree that had begun changing colors.
As for the changing
(though all branches are the same)
of just these tree-leaves,
it's because, I see, that it's
the west where autumn begins.
onaji e o
wakite ko no ha no
utsurou wa
nishi koso aki no
hajime narikere
---L.
As for the changing
(though all branches are the same)
of just these tree-leaves,
it's because, I see, that it's
the west where autumn begins.
—4 June 2012
Original by Fujiwara no Kachion. Kachion's dates are unknown but based on headnotes he was active from at least the 870s through the 890s. He has four poems in the Kokinshu. ¶ In the yin-yang/five-elements cosmology imported from China and nativized as onmyôdô, autumn is associated with the west (and with the metal element, the white tiger, and so on). I'd render the final clause as "it must be because" if the verb were not inflected as an affirmative realization instead of a speculation.onaji e o
wakite ko no ha no
utsurou wa
nishi koso aki no
hajime narikere
---L.