Kokinshu #262
Saturday, 23 June 2012 06:58![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnhammer Written on seeing autumn leaves within the sacred fence when he passed by a god's shrine.
Even the kudzu
creeping within the precinct
of the mighty gods --
it cannot, against autumn:
it also has changed colors.
chihayaburu
kami no igaki ni
hau kuzu mo
aki ni wa aezu
utsuroinikeri
---L.
Even the kudzu
creeping within the precinct
of the mighty gods --
it cannot, against autumn:
it also has changed colors.
—11-14 June 2012
Original by Ki no Tsurayuki. Same stock epithet for the gods as in #254, giving the piece a somewhat elevated tone. Kudzu is an arrowroot vine (Pueraria lobata). Technically, it creeps within the fence but in the grounds is the more natural idiom in English; were it not for the headnote, it'd also be possible to read it as creeping, more naturally, "on" the fence. "Also" is interpretive, but that's the clear sense. And speaking of clarity, just to be explicit, "shrines" are Shinto and "temples" are Buddhist. By placing this quite good poem between two weaker ones, I suspect Tsurayuki (not for the first time) of making himself look all the better in contrast.chihayaburu
kami no igaki ni
hau kuzu mo
aki ni wa aezu
utsuroinikeri
---L.