Kokinshu #370

[lnhammer]

Written and sent to someone had gone to Koshi.

    Even though I hear
there is a Mt. Return there,
    if you've departed
amid the rising spring mist,
I must indeed long for you.

—26 February 2013

(Original by Ki no Toshisada.) Koshi is the old name for what's now called the Hokuriku region on the north coast of the main island, covering several provinces corresponding roughly to modern Fukui, Ishikawa, Toyama, and Niigata prefectures. Mt. Return is a literal meaning of Kaeruyama in Fukui -- a place that will show up again because of its name. Pivot-word: tachi- is "rise" for the mist and the "de-" of "depart" (much as in #103, though here the double reading is required to make sense of things). The implication seems to be that mists would somehow delay the recipient's return. It's possible to instead read the mist as a purely decorative stock epithet for tachi-, serving no semantic purpose -- this may be a preferable interpretation, if it comes to that. Or possibly "if you've risen like the spring mist and departed"? Regardless, I'm not exactly impressed by this one.


kaeruyama
ari to wa kikedo
harugasumi
tachiwakarenaba
koishikarebeshi

---L.