Kokinshu #135

Topic unknown.

    The wisteria waves
have now bloomed by the pond
    beside my house.
So when might he come and sing,
the cuckoo of the mountains?

Some say this poem is by Kakinomoto no Hitomaro.

—24 August 2011

Original author unknown. Hitomaro was a late Asuka-period courtier praised in the Kokinshu prefaces as one of the two best poets of Japan's past. His birthdate is unknown; his datable poetry in the Man'yoshu, much of it written for court occasions, is all from the 680s through the 700s, and he is believed to have died before 710 when the capital moved to Nara. He was deified as a Shinto god of poetry, with shrines devoted to him concentrated in western Shimane Prefecture (formerly Iwami Province, where he served as minor adminstrative official), though there's one near Kobe where an annual poetry festival is still held. Five poems in the Kokinshu are dubiously attributed to him, and modern scholars are as dubious as the editors, making the whole first half of this footnote pure distraction. ¶ The hototogisu or lesser cuckoo (Cuculus poliocephalus, sometimes confusingly translated as "nightingale" despite being a rather different bird) is to summer what the bush warbler was to spring, only more so.* We'll be hearing -- and not hearing -- from it a lot throughout book 3, so it's a good thing its song is pretty. As usual for a key 5-syllable word, it has no case-marking particle (despite appearing here in a 7-syllable line -- mountains also take up space): possible readings include direct address, exclamation, or unmarked subject of "come sing." Note that with the wave and pond we get an implicit contrast with the mountains. The wisteria, as we have seen, is a late spring flower, and the cuckoo doesn't start singing until June, making this poem encompass the transition into summer.

* The only reason it doesn't appear on this icon is its name isn't written with a single kanji.


waga yado no
ike no fujinami
sakinikeri
yamahototogisu
itsu ka kinakamu

kono uta, aru hito no iwaku, kakinomoto no hitomaru ga nari


ETA: Regarding Hitomaro as god, this book.

---L.