Kokinshu #276
Saturday, 21 July 2012 08:23![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnhammer Written on seeing a chrysanthemum flower while thinking about transience in this world of ours.
While they're still splendid,
these chrysanthemums of autumn,
given it's not known
whether I'll precede the flowers,
I'll adorn myself with them.
aki no kiku
niou kagiri wa
kazashitemu
hana yori saki to
shiranu waga mi o
---L.
While they're still splendid,
these chrysanthemums of autumn,
given it's not known
whether I'll precede the flowers,
I'll adorn myself with them.
—19 July 2012
Original by Ki no Tsurayuki. Back to the longevity theme. To reproduce something of Tsurayuki's smoothness, I re-ordered the clauses more than usual, though this has the side-effect of emphasizing the flowers more than the limit of their blooming. Exactly what he would do ahead of the flowers is left unstated, and required supplying a verb. Confession: I do not understand how a perfective inflection combines with what looks like a volitional one -- "I would have" would be another conjugation (I think). My rendering assumes the perfective is basically acting as an emphatic form, but that's a guess.aki no kiku
niou kagiri wa
kazashitemu
hana yori saki to
shiranu waga mi o
---L.