Hyakunin Isshu #56
Sunday, 11 April 2010 07:49![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnhammer In my memories
of this world of ours that we
one day will depart,
oh, how I wish that there was
one more meeting with you now.
Houston, we've got a pronoun problem. The headnote says it was written when someone was gravely ill, which probably means that the receiver was sick, but it's not uncommon to (mis)read it as saying the poet was sick. This may partly be because in the poem, which as usual has no pronouns, who is about to "be outside this world" is most easily read as the speaker -- somewhat jarring if you take the headnote as meaning someone else is sick. However, I note that it's a Buddhist commonplace that we are all as transitory as the grass, thus my solution. (It's also not uncommon to ignore the headnote entirely and insist it's a lovesick letter, to which I say, eh?.) "One day" is not explicit but a defensible interpretation of the initial imperfective verb.
arazaramu
kono yo no hoka no
omoide ni
ima hitotabi no
au koto mogana
---L.
of this world of ours that we
one day will depart,
oh, how I wish that there was
one more meeting with you now.
—6 April 2010
Original by Izumi Shikibu, mother of Lady-in-Waiting Koshikibu (#60) and best known for writing the Izumi Shikibu Diary, chronicling one of her affairs with an imperial prince (specifically, her second). Her use-name comes from Izumi Province, where her first husband was governor, plus a title of her father's.Houston, we've got a pronoun problem. The headnote says it was written when someone was gravely ill, which probably means that the receiver was sick, but it's not uncommon to (mis)read it as saying the poet was sick. This may partly be because in the poem, which as usual has no pronouns, who is about to "be outside this world" is most easily read as the speaker -- somewhat jarring if you take the headnote as meaning someone else is sick. However, I note that it's a Buddhist commonplace that we are all as transitory as the grass, thus my solution. (It's also not uncommon to ignore the headnote entirely and insist it's a lovesick letter, to which I say, eh?.) "One day" is not explicit but a defensible interpretation of the initial imperfective verb.
arazaramu
kono yo no hoka no
omoide ni
ima hitotabi no
au koto mogana
---L.