Kokinshu #256

[lnhammer]

Written on seeing the autumn leaves on Mt. Otowa when he made a pilgrimage to Ishiyama.

    Ever since the day
I heard the autumn winds blow,
    even the treetops
on the peak of Mt. Otowa
have, ah!, been changing colors.

—4 June 2012

Original by Ki no Tsurayuki. Ishiyama ("stone mountain") Temple was another pilgrimage site on the western shore of Lake Biwa. Otowa (see #142) is noted for its autumn leaves; its name is a possible pivot-word, where the oto can be understood as "sound" -- whether to do so is debated because syntactically it would belong to the second clause but logically should go with the first. I chose to do so in part because it makes the reuse of the first two lines of #173 pull more weight. Why it's surprising that "even" high-altitude leaves are changing is obscure.


akikaze no
fukinishi hi yori
otowayama
mine no kozue mo
irozukinikeri

---L.

Comments

[lnhammer]

(Any photos?)

I'm used to seeing colors march down the mountainsides, triggered by being colder at higher elevations. It's especially striking with aspens in Colorado and New Mexico, but I remember watching the same happening in the Appalachians.

---L.

[starlady]

Yeah, in Japan they change later up top.

Let me see if I can dig up photos. I lost all my photos from my first trip in '08 (and my primo video of the Murasaki robot), but I went back last year.

[lnhammer]

BTW, last night I started poking my way through Taketori monogatari, and was amused at how emphatically Old Man Bamboo-Cutter's personal name is announced, then promptly ignored. I assume it comes up again later? (I got only two paragraphs in.)

---L.

[starlady]

That…is a good question. Probably not, actually! From what I recall he was only ever referred to as "the old man" in the parts we read. My teacher was saying that the text(s) that we have were clearly added on to at various points, and the court rank whatnot was part of that.

[lnhammer]

Hmm. And, hmmm.

I need to find a full edition, preferably with enough glosses to get the modern Japanese reader through the difficult bits.

---L.