Manyoshu #4323
Wednesday, 27 January 2010 07:48![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnhammer Time after time
I see flowers from home bloom,
so why is it
that a flower called "Mother"
never comes into bloom?
tokidoki no
hana wa saketo mo
nani sure so (or zo)
haha tou hana no
sakidekozukemu
---L.
I see flowers from home bloom,
so why is it
that a flower called "Mother"
never comes into bloom?
—20 January 2010
Original by Hase[tsuka]be no Mamaro, a soldier drafted in 755 for frontier duty on the north coast of Kyushu (facing Korea). He was from the Yamana district of Totomi Province (modern Shizuoka Prefecture), and so spoke an eastern dialect of Old Japanese -- which means more guessing than usual here. Normally I'd avoid repeating words, but our young (for he sounds very young) recruit repeats both flower and bloom. "I see" is my interpolation; "from home" is a plausible, or at least defensible, interpretation of "the same".tokidoki no
hana wa saketo mo
nani sure so (or zo)
haha tou hana no
sakidekozukemu
---L.