Kokinshu #274
Tuesday, 17 July 2012 07:11![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnhammer Written on a depiction of a person waiting among chrysanthemum flowers for someone.
Waiting for someone,
I kept glancing at the flowers --
mistaking them for
nothing so much as his sleeves
white as mulberry-bark cloth.
hana mitsutsu
hito matsu toki wa
shirotae no
sode ka to nomi zo
ayamatarekeru
---L.
Waiting for someone,
I kept glancing at the flowers --
mistaking them for
nothing so much as his sleeves
white as mulberry-bark cloth.
—8 July 2012
Original by Ki no Tomonori. Another apparently from the same contest, written about another model. The POV isn't as clear-cut as the previous, but the person within the model is the easiest reading. In contrast to #22, the stock epithet shiratae no is just a fancy way of saying "white." Scholars have speculated that this may have been inspired by a verse by Tao Qian, a fifth-century Chinese poet admired in Japan, and as well pointed out not much is gained by the allusion aside from a spot of learnedness.hana mitsutsu
hito matsu toki wa
shirotae no
sode ka to nomi zo
ayamatarekeru
---L.