Kokinshu #372
Thursday, 14 March 2013 07:22![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnhammer Written for a friend travelling into the country.
Is it that at parting
I feel the separation
of distance, so that
even while I still see you
I already long for you?
wakarete wa
hodo o hedatsu to
omoeba ya
katsu minagara ni
kanete koishiki
---L.
Is it that at parting
I feel the separation
of distance, so that
even while I still see you
I already long for you?
—14 March 2013
Original by Ariwara no Shigeharu. Confession: I don't understand what half the particles are doing, grammatically, in this thing -- but it's time to give up with my best guess and move on. I haven't mentioned that in these headnotes, the verb variously rendered as travel/go is specifically a motion away from the capital, with a strong connotation of going "down" from it -- this is the first one to more directly expose the implied courtly worldview of the one imperial city and everything else. The poem has much the same import as the previous, embodied with less grace than Tsurayuki managed, though there is some nice alliteration going.wakarete wa
hodo o hedatsu to
omoeba ya
katsu minagara ni
kanete koishiki
---L.