Kokinshu #36
Monday, 13 December 2010 07:12![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnhammer Written on breaking off [a branch of] plum flowers.
They say the warbler
embroiders its sunhat with these
plum flowers I pick --
perhaps I'll adorn myself
with them to hide my old age.
uguisu no
kasa ni nuu chô
ume no hana
orite kazasamu
oi kakuru ya to
---L.
They say the warbler
embroiders its sunhat with these
plum flowers I pick --
perhaps I'll adorn myself
with them to hide my old age.
—24 October 2010
Original by Minamoto no Tokiwa (c.812-854), a son of Emperor Saga. This is his only poem in the Kokinshu. This charming bit of folklore is elaborated on in #1081, a folksong about a warbler weaving a sun-hat from willow-branch threads and decorating it with plum flowers. Whether Tokiwa directly refers to that song or they both to some common lore is unclear. Another unmarked flower, though the direct object of "pick" is the only sensible reading (with the direct object of "stitch" being a zero pronoun pointing forward to it).uguisu no
kasa ni nuu chô
ume no hana
orite kazasamu
oi kakuru ya to
---L.