KKS 13

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Text

[寛平御時后きさいの宮の歌合うたあはせの歌]

[A poem at the Empress' Poetry Competition in the Kampyō era]

紀友則

Ki no Tomonori

花のかを風のたよりにたぐへてぞ鶯さそふしるべにはやる

hana no ka wo kaze no tayori ni tague-te zo uguisu sasou shirube ni wa yaru

The flowers' scent To the message of the wind I will add it And send it to the warbler As an invitation.

Notes

Other sources:

• Kokin waka rokujō | Shinsen waka | Shinsen man'yōshū
• Teika hachidaishō

Analysis

The warblers in the previous poem have only false "flowers", so they don't yet know it's spring. Therefore, we must send the plum scent from our garden to invite the warblers out of the valley, leading directly into the next poem.

A good number of commentators (Mabuchi, Takanao, and Kaneko(1927)) say that the poet is reluctant to let the scent go because of how much he values it. It's hard to see where this feeling comes from, although Takeoka links it to the wa particle in the final line and perhaps an emphasis of the wo in the first. As with other poems earlier, the conceit of sending the warblers a message is called "childish" by some (Mabuchi, Takanao), but that seems to be a harsh judgment. Kubota disagrees with both ideas.

As Katagiri points out, in the original poetry competition this was paired with poem 12. So even if they were composed separately at first, they were later joined. Presumably there is a contrast with the scent of the real flowers in this poem and the scentless "flowers" of the previous one. Since the warblers have no real flowers and don't know it's spring, we have to send them scent.

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