Gosenshu #1361

While strolling here and there by the seashore.

    Flowers blooming
but not ripening to fruits:
    the offshore whitecaps
that the open ocean is
putting on as a garland.

—31 July 2011

Original by Ono no Komachi. The third line has a bit of a puzzler: wata-tsu-umi, which in my base text is written with kanji meaning "crossing {genitive modifying}-> ocean" (where here wata is the stem of wataru, "to cross over"). This is one of the conjectured etymologies for watatsumi, a draconic sea god whose name in modern Japanese is usually written with kanji meaning "ocean god" (where here wata is a very old synonym of umi, "ocean"), and indeed some texts romanize the poem as watatsumi and translate it as the god. However, I note that in KKS #250, wata-tsu-umi/watatsumi (texts use both forms) is usually understood as meaning the wide sea ("the sea that is crossed"). I went with this literal reading because it produces a charming personification, but feel free to replace my fourth line with "the dragon of the sea is" if you prefer a literal person.

Next up: book 3 of the Kokinshu, which will go quickly -- summer is one fourth as long as spring.


hana sakite
mi naranu mono wa
wata-tsu-umi no
kazashi ni saseru
oki tsu shironami

---L.