Hyakunin Isshu #34
Tuesday, 2 February 2010 07:56![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnhammer So who now can be
my longtime companion?
Despite their great age,
even Takasago's pines
cannot be my friends of old.
tare o ka mo
shiru hito ni sen (or semu)
takasago no
matsu mo mukashi no
tomo naranaku ni
---L.
my longtime companion?
Despite their great age,
even Takasago's pines
cannot be my friends of old.
—24 January 2010
Original by Fujiwara no Okikaze. Takasago lore includes a story of an old loving couple who were turned into pine trees when they died. Given this and that shiru hito and tomo can be singular or plural, it's possible to read this as mourning for a dead wife instead of absent friends. "Despite their age" is not explicit in the original but gacked from a commentator trying to make sense of that trailing ni.tare o ka mo
shiru hito ni sen (or semu)
takasago no
matsu mo mukashi no
tomo naranaku ni
---L.