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Kokinshu #100
Friday, 17 June 2011 07:00 (Topic unknown.)
He isn't coming,
the person I'm waiting for,
so I have plucked off
the flowering branch where -- ah! --
the bush warbler was singing.
matsu hito mo
konu mono yue ni
uguisu no
nakitsuru hana o
oritekeru kana
---L.
He isn't coming,
the person I'm waiting for,
so I have plucked off
the flowering branch where -- ah! --
the bush warbler was singing.
—11 June 2011.
(Original author unknown.) Remember our old friend from early spring, the confusable bush warbler? Though for once it's not confused -- but I sure am over what the heck the speaker (most likely a woman waiting for her lover) is doing to it. A grammatical ambiguity compounds the problem: mono yue ni can be understood as either a resultive ("because") or concessive ("although") conjunction. If the former, then she seems to be displacing the bird out of spite. If the latter, she's determined to enjoy the flowers despite it all ... at which point the warbler is kinda grafted on as decoration. The clumsiness of that last is what inclines me toward the former reading.matsu hito mo
konu mono yue ni
uguisu no
nakitsuru hana o
oritekeru kana
---L.