Kokinshu #154

(from the same contest.)

    Is it the dark night,
or is the way confusing?
    Cuckoo, it seems you
cannot pass by, of all places,
my house -- and keep singing here.

—2 October 2011

(Original by Ki no Tomonori.) Fun-but-relevant trivia: the flexible placement of classical Japanese question mark(er)s extended even to the middle of a relative clause modifying the subject of the sentence. The syntax of the first half is almost identical to #149, but the difference of paired ?s (instead of paired contrast markers) makes it nearly impossible to make the two translations parallel without making them really awkward -- and awkward Tomonori is not. "It seems" corresponds to nothing in the original and is present only to add a graceful note.


yo ya kuraki
michi ya madoeru
hototogisu
waga yado o shimo
sugigateni naku

---L.