paru sareba
mikusa nö upë ni
oku simo nö
ketutu ni mo are pa
kopiwataru ka mo
With spring’s coming
Atop the grasses
The frost fall
Vanishes, yet I
Continue with my yearning.
2 thoughts on “MYS X: 1908”
There seems to be an oddity with the fourth line in the original text: 消につつも我れは/けにつつもわれは has eight morae rather than the typical seven. What is the reason for this?
I’ve re-checked the readings given to the characters of this poem, and note that it should be ketutu ni mo are pa – I have corrected the transcription above. There are two reasons for the extra mora in this poem: first, and most simply, the tanka form was still evolving in the Nara period, so the poets of the time were less bothered about violating compositional rules. This is one of the reasons why poets of later times regarded the poems of Man’yōshū as uncouth. Second, given that this line presents two vowels adjacent to each other, they could be elided together when the poem was recited, meaning that the extra mora was not particularly noticeable. This is somethign which you see occasionally in the poetry of later ages, too.
There seems to be an oddity with the fourth line in the original text: 消につつも我れは/けにつつもわれは has eight morae rather than the typical seven. What is the reason for this?
The University of Virginia version has the same line: http://jti.lib.virginia.edu/japanese/manyoshu/AnoMany.html
I’ve re-checked the readings given to the characters of this poem, and note that it should be ketutu ni mo are pa – I have corrected the transcription above. There are two reasons for the extra mora in this poem: first, and most simply, the tanka form was still evolving in the Nara period, so the poets of the time were less bothered about violating compositional rules. This is one of the reasons why poets of later times regarded the poems of Man’yōshū as uncouth. Second, given that this line presents two vowels adjacent to each other, they could be elided together when the poem was recited, meaning that the extra mora was not particularly noticeable. This is somethign which you see occasionally in the poetry of later ages, too.