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Kokinshu #399
Saturday, 1 June 2013 06:31 Written when parting with Prince Kanemi after first conversing with him.
Even though we part,
I am filled with happiness.
Who in the world might
I have loved before we met
each other this evening?
wakaruredo
ureshiku mo aru ka
koyoi yori
aiminu saki ni
nani o koimashi
---L.
Even though we part,
I am filled with happiness.
Who in the world might
I have loved before we met
each other this evening?
—29-30 May 2013
Original by Ôshikôchi no Mitsune. Again, the language sounds a lot like a love poem. Though of course it's also easy to read it as courtier flattery of the sort common around the world. The rhetorical question is strengthened by a counterfactual conjugation. Changes made for idiomatic-sounding English: "who in the world" is a bit stronger than the original's "who," even with the counterfactual, and technically it's "saw" rather than "met."wakaruredo
ureshiku mo aru ka
koyoi yori
aiminu saki ni
nani o koimashi
---L.