Kokinshu #345

[lnhammer]

(Topic unknown.)

    The plovers that dwell
on Sashide's rocky shore
    below Salt Mountain
are indeed calling the reign
of my lord "eight thousand years."

—20 November 2012

(Original author unknown.) Lost in translation: the onomatopoeia for a plover's call is usually chiyo, which can be heard as "thousand years," but honorific hyperbole has changed this to yachiyo, "eight thousand years." Some traditions locate Salt Mountain in Kai Province (modern Yamanashi Prefecture), and commentaries split on whether to read sashide as a place name or as "a spit" (indicating the shoreline juts out into the waters). The original is a highly polished verse, with its frequent i and o sounds echoing, and finally resolving in, the plover's call and the shi-/sa-/su- sounds starting the first three lines.


shio no yama
sashide no iso ni
sumu chidori
kimi ga miyo o-ba
yachiyo to zo naku

---L.

Comments

[lnhammer]

A lot of the autumn and winter ones show up as songs, too.

---L.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, good point. Actually, the "Kokin-gumi" by the composer of "Chidori" is a good example of this, which would probably have been worth bringing up, whoops. Still, all those settings are to "Chidori" what those Schubert settings of Schiller's poems are to Beethoven's 9th, in terms of notability. --Matt

[lnhammer]

I'd gotten something of that impression from the relative number of websites (even in English) that mention them, but it's good to get confirmation.

---L.