Kokinshu #76

[lnhammer]

Written on seeing the cherry blossoms were scattering.

    Does anyone know
the dwelling place of the wind
    that scatters flowers?
Please tell me at once, for I
want to go there and complain.

—14 February 2011

Original by Sosei, with another of his witty rhetorical questions. In the topic, I'm puzzled as to why the scattering has a polite auxillary verb (haberu, roughly equivalent to modern -masu). I mean, if mark politeness all, and except when there's royalty involved it hasn't been, why not on the seeing instead? Clearly, I'm not grasping something about classical honorific syntax. ETA: Apparently, it's a real puzzle.


hana chirasu
kaze no yadori wa
tare ka shiru
ware ni oshieyo
yukite uramimu

---L.

Comments

Re: Haberu

[lnhammer]

It does, actually. I only consulted two other texts, for this, and both had it in the same place (without any commentary) so I assumed it was just me.

---L.