Kokinshu #39

Written on Mt. Kurabu.

    The flowering plum!
With its scent in the springtime,
    even when we cross
Mt. Shadows in the darkness,
we indeed know it is there.

—25 October 2010

Original by Ki no Tsurayuki. So many compromises here. As noted in #15, niou had an archaic meaning of "to be splended/have splendor" (pointing at the white flowers in darkness) as well as the main modern meaning of "to be fragrant" -- given the previous two poems treat color and scent equally, not to mention Tsurayuki's poetic ability, I suspect both senses are intended simultaneously. However, comma, I can't find an English equivalent with such a double-reading. If one has to choose, given that the next two poems are about smelling plum flowers in the night, rendering the perfume sense can be justified as part of this shift. Mt. Kurabu is unknown, though it may be an old name of either Mt. Kurama or Mt. Kibune near Kyoto; it's being crossed in the darkness (yami) because its name puns on kurai, "dark" -- I rendered it as Mt. Shadows to keep the pun as unlabored as the original. Again, the flowers can be subject, address, or exclamation (the mountain is also grammatically unmarked, but it pretty much can't be anything but the direct object of "cross").


ume no hana
niou haru-be wa
kurabuyama
yami ni koyuredo
shiruku zo arikeru

---L.