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Kokinshu #424
Thursday, 25 July 2013 06:59 Cicada shell (utsusemi)
Looking at the shoals
struck by the waves, there are gems
all scattered about.
If I gather them up, though,
won't they vanish in my sleeve?
nami no utsu
se mireba tama zo
midarekeru
hirowaba sode ni
hakanakaramu ya
---L.
Looking at the shoals
struck by the waves, there are gems
all scattered about.
If I gather them up, though,
won't they vanish in my sleeve?
—4 July 2013
Original by Ariwara no Shigeharu. A summer/early-autumn topic, one metaphorically rather than literally related to the content: the shell from the final juvenile molt of a cicada was a common Buddhist symbol for a world that is empty and "fleeting," as this poem puts it -- though I rendered that a little idiomatically. (#443, for example, uses it as a stock epithet for the world.) The gems are, of course, drops of spray (or possibly bubbles), and sleeves are where one conventionally gathers up drops (of tears). A better reading may be "the rapids where waves strike (each other)," but I'm not strongly enough convinced of that to change my rendering.nami no utsu
se mireba tama zo
midarekeru
hirowaba sode ni
hakanakaramu ya
---L.