Kokinshu #104

[lnhammer]

Written on seeing flowers fading.

    When I see flowers
my heart certainly
    fades with them as well.
I won't display these changes --
even that person won't know.

— 26 June 2011

Original by Ôshikôchi no Mitsune. In the original what he won't put forth is iro, here meaning both the flower's "color" and his own "appearance"/"feeling." While "changes" is not literal, it avoids collapsing the ambiguity. The point about not showing another seems to be to keep his lover from imitating the flowers by altering her affections. (It's either that, or he's affecting a stoicism unbecoming in a Heian courtier.) If it weren't for that last bit of forced cleverness, I'd like this poem a lot for its layering of meanings. As it is, my first three lines don't do it justice.


hana mireba
kokoro sae ni zo
utsurikeri
iro ni wa ideji
hito mo koso shire

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

That's an interesting treatment of the last line. At first I was going to be all finger-pointy because I read it as "I won't let these changes show, [because if I did] that person might also know [how I feel]", where "know" is really more like "realize." But your version is the same idea from a different angle, really, isn't it?

Also, I think the point is that his feelings have changed but he wants to keep it a secret for his own reasons. (Why would he care if his girlfriend's feelings changed too? Surely that would be better for him, allowing a clean break?)

Plus, I guess that reading "hito" as "people" rather than a particular person is a popular option too. Any particular reason why you avoided that? --Matt

[lnhammer]

More or less the same, ya.

Person or people, though, I think depends on how you interpret why he's keeping whateveritis a secret: if he's being stoic, then yeah, people makes more sense -- if he's avoiding contaminating other feelings, then singular would seem to be indicated. Unless, hmm, he's hoping to keep people from being sad by preventing them from noticing that spring is passing, but that doesn't really make much sense either.

For popularity, for readily available translations, it's 3 plural:1 singular, so Hmm again.

I think my personal QC department needs to send this back for rework -- as the day wears gone on, I'm more and more Bah over those first three lines.

---L.

[lnhammer]

Okay, now my silly little brain keeps jumping to Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness. So, so wrong.

---L.