Kokinshu #116

[lnhammer]

A poem from the poetry contest held in the palace of the consort in the Kanpyô era.

    Though I came to pluck
the young greens in the spring fields,
    my way was confused
by the flowers of late spring
mingling and scattering.

—19 July 2011

(Original by Ki no Tsurayuki.) Picking young greens is done in early spring (starting back some 90 poems ago) while flowers scattering is a late spring event -- giving an effect that's almost Rip-Van-Winkle-ish, or maybe I should say Urashima-ish. To make the timeslip more clear out of cultural context, I added "of late spring."


haru no no ni
wakana tsumamu to
koshi mono o
chirikau hana ni
michi wa madoinu

---L.

Comments

[movingfinger]

Have you read Angelica Lost and Found by Russell Hoban? It seemed to be something you might like.

[lnhammer]

No, I haven't -- I hadn't even noticed that Hoban was still writing. That does indeed look like something up my alley.

---L.

[movingfinger]

Yes, up your alley, possibly even on your back doorstep.

Guardian review here.

[lnhammer]

Saw that (it comes up high in the google results).

Angelica's rescue *is* one of the vivid scenes that stands out in memory.

---L.

[(Anonymous)]

How about if the "koshi" means that the first part is "I came this way before to pick young greens in (early) spring fields, but now (in late spring) the flowers are mingling and scattering and making me lose my way"? That way it's a sort of mini-evocation of the arc of spring in Japanese poetry: release from winter into joyful rebirth, followed by all the petals falling off everything while you get drunk and emotional. (No idea if this is an authoritative interpretation.)

Also, any particular reason why "mingling and scattering" when, if "scattering" is read as the act of departing from the branch, the logical order is the other way around?

[lnhammer]

So taking mono o as the modern final particle of complaint, instead of the conjunctive "although"? Hmm. That would make sense.

"Mingling and scattering" instead of the other way around for chiri-kau was purely for the sound, really -- and I had second thoughts about it. I was rationalizing it as taking place after leaving the branch: the petals swirl around mingling, and then scatter from that cloud, which is admittedly rather non-literal. An alternate line in draft was "scattering hither and yon."

---L.