Kokinshū KKS XIV: 729 5th November 2015 temca 2 Comments Topic unknown. 色もなき心を人にそめしよりうつろはむとはおもほえなくに iro mo naki kokoro wo Fito ni somesi yori uturoFamu to Fa omoFoenaku ni There was no colour To my heart, but with you It is dyed and now That it might fade Is beyond imagination. Ki no Tsurayuki 紀貫之
Compare with Kokinshū 687: あすかがはふちはせになる世なりとも思ひそめてむ人はわすれじ http://jti.lib.virginia.edu/japanese/kokinshu/kikokin.html My best guess for parsing 思ひそめてむ人 is something like “the person for whom my affections are dyed.” Reply
The somete element here is from 初む somu ‘begin’, so on the surface the construction is ‘begin to love’. You are right, though, that it evokes the homophonous 染む ‘dye’, too. Reply
Compare with Kokinshū 687:
あすかがはふちはせになる世なりとも思ひそめてむ人はわすれじ
http://jti.lib.virginia.edu/japanese/kokinshu/kikokin.html
My best guess for parsing 思ひそめてむ人 is something like “the person for whom my affections are dyed.”
The somete element here is from 初む somu ‘begin’, so on the surface the construction is ‘begin to love’. You are right, though, that it evokes the homophonous 染む ‘dye’, too.