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Kokinshu #107
Tuesday, 5 July 2011 07:00 (Topic unknown.)
If it were crying
that stopped the flowers from
scattering away,
would I be doing it any
less than the bush warbler?
chiru hana no
naku ni shi tomaru
mono naraba
ware uguisu ni
otoramashi ya wa
---L.
If it were crying
that stopped the flowers from
scattering away,
would I be doing it any
less than the bush warbler?
—30 June 2011
Original by Haruzumi no Amaneiko. Her dates are unknown, but her father, Yoshinawa, died in 870 and she appears in court records as an imperial attendant between 877 and 902 -- contemporaneous with Fujiwara no Yoruka (#80) and Fujiwara no Naoiko (#807). This is her only poem in the Kokinshu. Again, naku is "weep" for a human and "sing" for a bird -- and I get the feeling this "cry" pun's gonna get old quickly. Exactly what the speaker would be inferior at is unstated -- it could well be the quality, instead of quantity, of her crying. It's possible to read the last clause as asking whether the warbler could succeed at what the speaker failed to do, but that requires turning awkwardly the comparative around.chiru hana no
naku ni shi tomaru
mono naraba
ware uguisu ni
otoramashi ya wa
---L.