Kokinshu #473
Friday, 22 November 2013 07:10![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnhammer (Topic unknown.)
While I keep hearing
of you through these whispers
from Mount Wing-Whisper,
down here near Meeting-Hill Gate
I am, ah!, passing the years.
otowayama
oto ni kikitsutsu
ôsaka no
seki no konata ni
toshi o furu ka na
---L.
While I keep hearing
of you through these whispers
from Mount Wing-Whisper,
down here near Meeting-Hill Gate
I am, ah!, passing the years.
—19 November 2013
Original by Ariwara no Motokata. For Otowa ("wing-sound") and Ôsaka ("meeting-hill"), see #142 and #374, respectively; they are close together in the hills southeast of the capital. More heavy-handed wordplay by Motokata: the oto of Otowa being a pivot-doublet for its meaning of "sound/rumor" -- I loosely translate Otowa's name to replicate the effect. "Of you" is, as often, interpretive, with the pronoun chosen as much for gender-neutrality as anything.otowayama
oto ni kikitsutsu
ôsaka no
seki no konata ni
toshi o furu ka na
---L.