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Kokinshu #159
Sunday, 6 November 2011 09:16 Topic unknown.
The cuckoo that
wore me out with his singing
all summer last year --
was that him? -- or isn't it?
Because that voice is the same.
kozo no natsu
naki-furushiteshi
hototogisu
sore ka aranu ka
koe no kawaranu
---L.
The cuckoo that
wore me out with his singing
all summer last year --
was that him? -- or isn't it?
Because that voice is the same.
—11 October 2011
Original author unknown. As Sei Shonagon would later demonstrate, elegant and cranky are not incompatible. Not that this quite manages the former, with the doubled question markers in the fourth line creating an odd hesitance -- to get a similar effect, I slightly mistranslate the line as if it were two not-quite-parallel questions. "Because" reflects how the second question mark is tied grammatically to the final "is," and the voice more literally "is not different."kozo no natsu
naki-furushiteshi
hototogisu
sore ka aranu ka
koe no kawaranu
---L.