Kokinshu #111

[lnhammer]

Topic unknown.

    Our steeds are lined up,
so come now, let's go and see --
    in the old village,
flowers must be scattering
like nothing so much as snow.

—4 July 2011

Original author unknown. Here's a case where the generic flowers are pretty clearly sakura again. (And I have to admit, I find the image of horsemen in period costumes cantering through a whirl of cherry petals kinda romantic, in a cinematic sort of way. Preferably not in cheesy slo-mo, though.) Given cherries, there's a good chance the "old village" is pointing at the former Nara capital, but not good enough for me to bet on it -- and as you may have noticed, I tend to err on the side of literalism. Yet even as I say that, there's my "steed" for koma, which is now an old-fashioned synonym for uma ("horse") but at the time seems to have been in the standard rather than elevated register. This may not be best translation practice, but I like the effect anyway.


koma namete
iza mi ni yukamu
furusato wa
yuki to nomi koso
hana wa chirurame

---L.

Comments

[thistleingrey]

Is the "ma" in "koma" also the borrowed root 馬? (It'd be logical, but I have learned not to guess in these things.)

[lnhammer]

It seems to be. The actual kanji is 駒, which uses the same character as the left radical. Because it specifically sometimes means a small horse/pony, it's also sometimes written 小馬, though I think that might be a separate coinage/word.

---L.

[thistleingrey]

Cool. Thanks!

[(Anonymous)]

I really like "like nothing so much as snow"!

Your interpretation of the first two lines gives a pleasing "in media res" effect. My reading was that the "iza" applies to the whole thing (and was transposed for rhythmic reasons9, like "Iza, koma namete mi ni yukamu" = "O! let us go riding side-by-side and see (tarra-lilly, etc.)"

[lnhammer]

I thought of reading it that way, or at least as if iza was at the end of the first line, but that didn't seem as ... dynamic. And there's enough going on in this one, it really wants movement.

---L.