Kokinshu Book IVb: Autumn 1 (201-248)

[larryhammer]

Continued from part 1:

201.  (Author unknown) (Topic unknown.)
aki no no ni michi mo madoinu matsumushi no koe suru kata ni yado ya karamashi	I have lost my way among the fields of autumn.     Over yonder, where pine-crickets say, "We're waiting," perhaps I might find lodgings.
Same matsu = "wait"/"pine-(cricket)" as the previous, only instead of the speaker waiting, here it's the pine-crickets themselves. What doesn't come through in translation: taking lodgings is inflected as a counterfactual speculation.
202.  (Author unknown) (Topic unknown.)
aki no no ni hito matsumushi no koe sunari ware ka to yukite iza toburawamu	In the autumn fields I hear a pine-cricket's voice     pining for someone. "Might it be me?" I wonder. Well then -- I'll go visit it.
This pivot-word is more complicated than usual: hito matsu="wait (for) someone" / hito matsumushi="single pine-cricket." The syntax of the final couplet is kinda funky, with "well then" actually between "go" and "visit" -- the jaunty tone is more important that literal fidelity, though.
203.  (Author unknown) (Topic unknown.)
momijiba no chirite tsumoreru waga yado ni tare o matsumushi kokora nakuramu	Here in my garden where the fallen autumn leaves     are heaped up, for whom do these pine-crickets pine, crying so incessantly?
Again, the pining-cricket pivot and an assumed reading of naku as crying like a human. Also, the leaves have started falling.
204.  (Author unknown) (Topic unknown.)
higurashi no nakitsuru nae ni hi wa kurenu to omou wa yama no kage ni zo arikeru	With the low crying of cicadas at sunset,     the day had ended -- or so I thought, when instead it was the mountain's shadow.
The shadow deceives the insects, who deceive the speaker in turn. Pivot-word: hi kurashi="sunset" / higurashi=a species of crepuscular cicada (Tanna japonensis) that chirrs mournfully at dusk and dawn in September and October, or from mid- to late autumn. "Low" is interpretive, to counter Western expectations of how loudly cicadas buzz. Note the unusual use of two hypermetric (long) lines in the original and the implication (carried by the inflection of surprise at the mountain) the speaker is a traveler. I like this for its evocation of a visual scene and setting.
205.  (Author unknown) (Topic unknown.)
higurashi no naku yamazato no yûgure wa kaze yori hoka ni tou hito mo nashi	In the growing dusk of this mountain village where     the cicadas cry, aside from only the wind there is no one who visits.
The somewhat wordy last couplet is a hackneyed phrase, but I'm not sure whether it had already become such.
206.  Ariwara no Motokata Written on the first wild goose.
matsu hito ni aranu mono kara hatsukari no kesa naku koe no mezurashiki kana	It wasn't the one I was waiting for, and yet     the voice this morning of the first wild goose, calling -- wasn't it simply splendid?
This brings us firmly back to the main chronological sequence, with the initial arrival of the geese mentioned in #191. Not a brilliant poem, but it's first Motokata's come even close to decent -- mark him as batting 1 for 5 with a single that dribbled just past the shortstop.
207.  Ki no Tomonori A poem from the poetry contest at the house of Prince Koresada.
akikaze ni hatsukari ga ne zo kikoyunaru taga tamazusa o kakete kitsuramu	It seems I can hear the sounds of the first wild geese     on the autumn wind. Whose epistles, I wonder, have they come here carrying?
According to the records of the Kampyô Era Consort's contest, held around the same time, a version of this (with kikoyu = "can hear" replaced by hibiku = "resound") was entered in that contest; scholars speculate that either our compilers got confused or a later scribe made a slip of the brush. Tamazusa is a poeticism for a message, sometimes with the suggestion of a love-letter, thus "epistles." Compare to #30 for messenger-geese heading the other way and #14 for Tomonori using other things as messengers. As usual for Tomonori, his polished soundplay doesn't come through in translation.
208.  Author unknown Topic unknown.
waga kado ni inaoosedori no naku nae ni kesa fuku kaze ni kari wa kinikeri	Outside of my gate the inaosedori called     at the same time as, this morning, the wild geese arrived on the blowing wind.
The inaoosedori is, like the yobukodori and momochidori (see #28-29), another uncertain bird with several medieval identifications handed down as esoteric traditions -- but unlike those, it shows up twice in the Kokinshu, the other place being #306. From context, it seems to be a migratory bird arriving in autumn, identified by tentative modern scholars as possibly a wagtail. Its name is sometimes translated as "rice-bearing bird" after the kanji sometimes used to write it, though this is probably a phonetic spelling invented later -- and in any case, wouldn't it instead be stealing the grains? Given the uncertainties, I left the name untranslated, although "the little autumn birds chipped" or "chirped" or something species-appropriate would be somewhat more vivid than the generic "call" this enforces.
209.  (Author unknown) (Topic unknown.)
ito haya mo nakinuru kari ka shiratsuyu no irodoru kigi mo momijiaenaku ni	So very early! Wild geese have started calling     -- even though the white dew hasn't painted trees enough that they can change colors yet.
It was commonly believed that leaves change color through the action of water, such as dewdrops or rain. The first two lines are technically a sentence fragment, one that would in normal sentence order go after the last three, and "enough" is an omitted-but-understood word.
210.  (Author unknown) (Topic unknown.)
harugasumi kasumite inishi kari ga ne wa ima zo nakunaru akigiri no ue ni	The geese whose voices faded into the spring haze     as they went away, now indeed I can hear them -- there above the autumn mists.
A look-back to the springtime haze/mist first met in #3, and the introduction of its autumnal counterpart. Kasumi is an almost-pivot-word, in that it's actually repeated rather than double-used, first as the "haze" then as a verb meaning "get hazy"/"grow dim." The original sentence grammatically ends with the fourth line's "hear them call," leaving "above the mist" as a sort of dangling adverb; given English allows such phrases as a matter of course, the effect is not readily reproducible, even with punctuation.
211.  (Author unknown) (Topic unknown.)
yo o samumi koromo kari ga ne naku nae ni hagi no shitaba mo utsuroinikeri kono uta wa aru hito no iwaku, kaki(no)moto no hitomaro	I borrow a robe because the nights are chilly     as the wild geese cry the bush-clover's lower leaves have, I see, begun to change. Some say this poem is by Kakinomoto no Hitomaro.
The attribution to Hitomaro is more dubious than usual, in that it isn't included in the standard collection of Hitomaro's poems (which was in any event put together long after his death). That this also appears in Tadamine's collected poems but appended by another hand, and so also a dubious attribution, does not help the issue. Pivot-word: kari = "borrow" / "wild goose" -- something of the effect can be gotten by reading the middle line as part of both the phrase above and below. Something. (I'll readily cop that this is not my idea, but borrowed from other translations.) It's also possible to extend the pivot and read kari ga ne naku = "borrow, but go to bed and cry" / "the wild geese's voices cry," but this requires a bit of interpretive straining and, worse, makes the crying come from being cold rather than any emotion of the season.
212.  Fujiwara no Sugane A poem from the poetry contest held in the palace of the consort in the Kanpyô era.
akikaze ni koe o ho ni agete kuru fune wa ama no to wataru kari ni zo arikeru	The approaching boats raising their voices with their sails     in the autumn wind -- they are in fact the wild geese crossing the gates of heaven.
Sugane (855–908) was a high-level courtier who assisted with engineering the demotion and banishment of Sugawara no Michizane (see #272), and it was rumored that his death was caused by Michizane's vengeful ghost. He has this one poem in the Kokinshu. ¶ Only the one, but it's a complicated and clever one, with wordwit playing neatly into conceit -- assuming you give a pass to the pompous name for the sky, anyway. Pivot-word: ho ni agete = "hoisting sail" / "raising aloud (one's voice)." The comparison of geese calls to the creak of oars was traditional in Chinese poetry, and scholars have speculated this may have been inspired by a line by Bai Juyi/Po Chu-i, "Autumn geese have come with the sound of oars." Comparing sails to wings is, of course, common the world over, but bringing sails/voices into it seems to be original with Sugane -- and this sort of original variation on tradition was prized by Kokinshu-era poetics.
213.  Ôshikôchi no Mitsune Written on hearing wild geese call.
uki koto o omoi-tsuranete kari ga ne no naki koso watare aki no yo na yo na	Melancholy thoughts come one after another:     the sounds of wild geese crying as they cross over, each night after autumn night.
As in #210, the sentence ends with the fourth line, leaving the last as a dangling adverb. Stealth pun (not quite a pivot): buried in tsuranete, "(coming) one after another," is tsura, the "line" of flying geese. The effect is not just that a goose call spurs a sad thought, but that metaphorically each goose is one, and that Mitsune cries as well.
214.  Mibu no Tadamine A poem from the poetry contest at the house of Prince Koresada.
yamazato wa aki koso koto ni wabishikere shika no naku ne ni me o samashitsutsu	This mountain village seems all the more lonely in,     especially, autumn. I'm woken again and again by the cries of belling stags.
And from migrating geese we move to mating deer. Stags of the sika deer native to Japan are remarkably vocal in mating season, and their calls are another autumnal symbol.
215.  Author unknown. (from the same contest)
okuyama ni momiji fumewake naku shika no koe kiku toki zo aki wa kanashiki	At those times I hear the voice of the crying stag,     stepping through red leaves in the depths of the mountains, autumn is most sorrowful.
In the Hyakunin Isshu, this is attributed to Sarumaru, an otherwise unknown priest possibly of the late 8th or early 9th centuries. To add to the confusion, this poem is not in the Koresada contest records, but it is in those of the Kampyô Era Consort's contest -- presumably another slip of the brush. It's grammatically ambiguous whether stag or speaker is walking through the leaves -- the deer is the easiest and most common reading, but I preserved the ambiguity.
216.  (Author unknown) Topic unknown.
akihagi ni urabire oreba ashibiki no yamashita toyomi shika no nakuramu	Is it for grieving over autumn bush clover     that the stag's cries are echoing off the base of the foot-weary mountains?
Bush clover blooms around the same time as sika stags start belling, and the two are often linked -- as here and the next seven poems. Pronoun trouble: who is downhearted, the stag or the speaker? The latter is a common interpretation, "while I am downhearted, the stag cries, it seems," but the odd hesitance over whether the crying is happening inclines me to the former. This makes for a more cliche poem, perhaps, but one solidly in the Kokinshu manner. I'd use "foot" or "foothills" instead of "base" except that it creates a bad echo with "foot-weary" not present in the original.
217.  (Author unknown) (Topic unknown.)
akihagi o shigarami-fusete naku shika no me ni wa miezute oto no sayakesa	The crying stag that's trampling and entangling     the autumn bush-clover cannot be seen with the eye, and yet its sound is so clear.
In the last line, "and yet" is interpretive (though some sort of contrastive is clearly intended), as is "is." The implication in the first lines that rutting stags are in some sense out of kilter with the natural world is ... interesting.
218.  Fujiwara no Toshiyuki A poem from the poetry contest at the house of Prince Koresada.
akihagi no hana sakinikeri takasago no onoe no shika wa ima ya nakuramu	The autumn flowers of the bush-clover have bloomed.     The deer on the peaks of Takasago's mountains -- shouldn't they be calling now?
There are many places named Takasago ("high sands" = "dunes"), but the most famous is a hilly coastal district west of Kobe. The combination of a strongly affirmative inflection on "bloom" and a speculative inflection on "call" gives this a slightly off-kilter movement.
219.  Ôshikôchi no Mitsune Written on talking with someone, met in an autumn field, whom he had known long before.
akihagi no furue ni sakeru hana mireba moto no kokoro wa wasurezarikeri	When I see flowers blooming on the old stems of     the autumn bush-clover, I know that former feelings have not yet been forgotten.
The phrasing of the headnote strongly implies the "someone" was a former lover. Whether he is signalling a willingness to get back together (with an implied comparison of himself to the bush-clover) or bitter that the other person's affections cooled (by pointing the still-flowering plant at them) is up for interpretation. The phrase moto no kokoro, literally "original heart," is not easy to render, especially while maintaining the ambiguity of whether the spirit of a person or the plant is meant -- "former" lacks the connotation of source/base/fundamental/core, but it's the best I've come up. Another difficulty: why this was considered a seasonal poem instead a love poem.
220.  Author unknown Topic unknown.
akihagi no shitaba irozuku ima yori ya hitori aru hito no inegateni suru	The lower leaves of the autumn bush-clover     are changing colors. From now on, won't those who are alone have trouble sleeping?
The point apparently being that as nights get longer and colder, it takes two to stay warm in bed, though an overtone of seasonal melancholy is also there. Slightly better English verse would be "Won't those who are alone now / start to have trouble sleeping?" but that doesn't put as much emphasis on the question of "(isn't it) from now on?" as in the original. Again the sequence touches on leaves changing before changing the subject with the next poem.
221.  (Author unknown) (Topic unknown.)
naki-wataru kari no namida ya ochitsuramu mono omou yado no hagi no ue no tsuyu	Are these the teardrops fallen from the wild geese that     continue to cry? -- this dew on the bush-clover in the garden where I brood.
On to the topic of autumn dew, with a return of the naku=call/weep pun; naki-wataru can be understood as "cry (as they) cross over" as well as "cry for an extended time." This poem is cited as the trope maker for associating wild geese and tears, which became well-known enough to be a valid link between renga verses -- thus making the image now seem more hackneyed than it was when it was written.
222.  (Author unknown) (Topic unknown.)
hagi no tsuyu tama ni nukamu to toreba kenu yoshi mimu hito wa eda nagara miyo aru hito no iwaku, kono uta wa nara no mikado no o-uta nari to	The bush-clover dew -- when I grasped it to thread it     like gems, it vanished. So if you want to see it, you must look at the branches. Some say this poem is a poem by the Nara Emperor.
For the Nara Emperor, see #90. The comparison of dewdrops (especially ones hung on spiderwebs, see #225) to jewels is common, as is the association of dew with bush clover (see the next couple poems). The first half is really a smoother statement than as rendered, but otherwise the line-breaks sucked even worse.
223.  (Author unknown) (Topic unknown.)
orite miba ochi zo shinubeki akihagi no eda mo towowo ni okeru shiratsuyu	If I break it off, surely they'd scatter away     -- the resting white dew that bends over the branches of the autumn bush-clover.
Set by the editors in response to #222. "Resting" renders an idiomatic word -- possibly "fallen" would be more faithful in this regard, but that would interfere with the image of the drops scattering.
224.  (Author unknown) (Topic unknown.)
hagi ga hana chiruramu ono no tsuyujimo ni nurete o yukamu sayu wa fuku tomo	Though the frost-white dew will drench me in the meadows     where bush-clover blooms must be scattering, I shall go -- even if darkness should fall.
This uses several poeticisms, one of them confusingly: tsuyujimo seems intended as a fancy way of saying "white dew" rather than the literal sense of "dew-frost." The register inclines me to hear, even more than most poems, the sound of "Time's wingéd chariot hurrying near" in the nightfall. The concessive "though" is not in the original but strongly implied by the construction.
225.  Fun'ya no Asayasu A poem from the poetry contest at the house of Prince Koresada.
aki no no ni oku shiratsuyu wa tama nare ya tsuranuki-kakuru kumo no itosuji	The white dewdrops fallen in the autumn fields --     might they be jewels? The strands of spider webs have threaded through and strung them up.
The dates of Asayasu, son of Yasuhide, are unknown but he appears in court records in 892 and 902; this is his only poem in the Kokinshu. ¶ The last two lines are technically a verbless sentence fragment, but a faithful rendering sounds very odd in English. In contrast with the diction of the previous, this makes its poetry through a fanciful conception of concrete details.
226.  Henjô Topic unknown.
na ni medete oreru bakari zo ominaeshi ware ochiniki to hito ni kataru na	I'm charmed by your name -- but all I did was pluck you.     O maidenflower, don't tell anyone that I have fallen from my vows.
In Henjô's collected poems, the headnote that says it was written when he fell off his horse, and the first line that he was charmed by its color -- changes that feel to me like attempts to rescue his religious reputation by making the tumble literal. Ominaeshi is a valerian (Patrinia scabiosaefolia) with small yellow or white flowers on thin stems, and another of the canonical seven autumn flowers. When its name is written with kanji, the characters mean "maiden flower" or "lady flower" -- and I can't help but feel that without that punning potential, especially in the "maiden" sense, this rather unassuming plant wouldn't rate much poetic attention. Its name is another 5-syllable word often appearing without a case marker -- here, the command makes it unambiguously a direct address. "From my vows" is interpolation by way of a reminder that he's a Buddhist monk.
227.  Furu no Imamichi Written on seeing maidenflowers on Mt. Otoko when he was traveling to Nara to Archbishop Henjô's home.
ominaeshi ushi to mitsutsu zo yukisuguru otokoyama ni shi tateri to omoeba	O maidenflowers, I do indeed gaze sadly     as I pass you by -- for I am aware that you are growing on Man Mountain.
Imamichi appears in court records between 860 and 898 holding various provincial offices, and so was probably born around 830. He has three poems in the Kokinshu ¶ Otoko (lit. "man") Mountain was on the route from the capital to Isonokami Temple near Nara, where Henjô lived for a while. The maidenflowers could also be a third-person direct object of the gazing, but the editors clearly intend us to read this as a contrast to the previous.
228.  Fujiwara no Toshiyuki A poem from the poetry contest at the house of Prince Koresada.
aki no no ni yadori wa subeshi ominaeshi na o mutsumajimi tabi naranaku ni	I must take lodgings (although I'm not traveling)     in the autumn fields -- for the maidenflower's name is so appealing to me.
Syntax tangles: not only is the parenthetical the original last line, a displacement far enough away from the clause it modifies as to be confusing, but the whole second half is inverted from normal sentence order and would normally come first. I'm less certain than usual whether to understand the maidenflower as talked about or addressee ("for, maidenflower, your name") -- I went with the former in contrast to the previous two poems and to pair with the following, but I could be seeing editorial patterns that aren't there.
229.  Ono no Yoshiki Topic unknown.
ominaeshi ôkaru nobe ni yadoriseba ayanaku ada no na o ya tachinamu	If I were to lodge in a meadow of many     maidenflowers, won't I, and for no reason, get a rep for fickleness?
Yoshiki was a grandson of Ono no Takamura (see #335); his birth date is unknown, but he appears in court records as a rising young courtier, including an inherited office as an imperial scribe, between 887 and his apparently early death in 902. He has two poems in the Kokinshu. ¶ Placed by the editors as a somewhat frivolous response to the previous.
230.  Fujiwara no Tokihira Written and presented [to retired emperor Uda] at the Maidenflower Contest in Suzaku Palace.
ominaeshi aki no no kaze ni uchinabiki kokoro hitotsu o tare ni yosuramu	O maidenflower bending, swaying in the wind     in the autumn field, to whom are your feelings whole-heartedly inclined?
Tokihira (970–909) was head of the Fujiwara clan; as Minister of the Left, he led the cabal that ousted Michizane, his rival in the Ministry of the Right (see #272). He has one other poem in the Kokinshu. ¶ Uda held this poetry contest on the topic of maidenflowers in the autumn of 898; Suzaku Palace, also known as the Teiji Palace (see #68), was his primary residence after his retirement. The play on two verbs of motion, one each in literal and figurative senses, is from the original; the duplication of the literal one into two synonyms is my own, by way of trying to capture the repetitive sense of uchi-. I'm rather charmed by this one.
231.  Fujiwara no Sadakata (from the same contest)
aki narade au koto kataki ominaeshi ama no kawara ni oinu mono yue	The maidenflowers: impossible to meet     except in autumn -- even though they don't grow on the banks of Heaven's River ...
Sadakata (873?–932) rose to become a high-ranking minister, in part through family connections, his sister being Emperor Daigo's mother. This is his only poem in the Kokinshu. ¶ Yes, that's a Tanabata reference. Yes, no main verb. Yes, it is possible to invert the sentence order of a grammatical fragment -- who knew?
232.  Ki no Tsurayuki (from the same contest)
ta ga aki ni aranu mono yue ominaeshi nazo iro ni idete madaki utsurou	Although it's autumn, there's no one weary of you,     O maidenflower -- so why do the colors shown on your face already grow pale?
And then suddenly Tsurayuki pops up with a bit of technical virtuosity that takes my breath away. At the core is a pivot-word aki ni = "by autumn" / "(be) weary of," but the multiple meanings of iro = "color" / "surface" / "feelings" and utsurou = "change/fade" (of both colors and feelings) sustain the doubling over the whole poem. I couldn't find a way to reproduce both layers without tipping toward one interpretation or the other -- while this one at least suggests the literal meaning, it required an idiomatic rendering as well as interpolating "on your face." The more literal version would be "so why are the colors you / put on already fading?"
233.  Ôshikôchi no Mitsune (from the same contest)
tsuma kouru shika zo nakunaru ominaeshi ono ga sumu no no hana to shirazu ya	It's the stag longing for his mate I hear cry out.     Isn't he aware the flowers in the field where he lives are maidenflowers?
The grammar allows the deer, the flower, or neither be addressed in the second half, but either way the syntax comes out slightly clumsy. My interpretation seems the smoothest, requiring only an implied cupola after the flowers.
234.  (Ôshikôchi no Mitsune) (from the same contest)
ominaeshi fukisugite kuru akikaze wa me ni wa mienedo ka koso shirukere	The autumn breeze comes blowing past the maidenflowers --     so even though they cannot be seen by the eye, their scent is indeed distinct.
As maidenflowers don't have a scent, one can only assume Mitsune has intentionally confused maidenflowers with maidens, resulting in the weakest name-play of this whole arc. Compare #39 for a similar poem with more justifiable flowers.
235.  Mibu no Tadamine (from the same contest)
hito no miru koto ya kurushiki ominaeshi akigiri ni nomi tachikakururamu	People seeing you -- is it that that's so painful,     O maidenflower, that you thus conceal yourself in the rising autumn mists?
Wordplay: the tachi- prefix is essentially an intensifier to kakuru, "to be concealed" with the flowers as subject, but if detached it would be a "rising" for the autumn mist. I've brought that overtone forward by double-translating it like a pivot-word, even though it isn't one. I think I would be more charmed by the modesty conceit if this hadn't come after so many other maidenflower poems.
236.  (Mibu no Tadamine) (from the same contest)
hitori nomi nagamuru yori wa ominaeshi waga sumu yado ni uete mimashi o	Rather than gazing all by myself into space,     would that I could transplant those maidenflowers to the dwelling where I live.
And the maidenflower contest ends with a return home from viewing them -- though the effect of finality is mitigated by the next poems.
237.  Prince Kanemi Written when, on his way somewhere, he saw maidenflowers planted at someone's house.
ominaeshi ushirometaku mo mieru kana aretaru yado ni hitori tatereba	O maidenflower, ah! how troubling it is     to be seeing you -- when you are standing alone in a house gone to ruin.
Kanemi, son of Koretaka (see #74), was born some time in the 860s and held various court offices and governorships between 886 and his death in 932. He has five poems in the Kokinshu. ¶ Because the situation suggests he knew a woman at the house, I went with a singular flower in the poem. In addition to the inverted sentence order, in that the second half would normally go first, the syntax in the first half is slightly tangled up.
238.  Taira no Sadafun Written in the Kampyô Era when courtiers from the Chamberlain's Office had gone flower-viewing in Sagano and, as they returned, everyone composed poems.
hana ni akade nani kaeruramu ominaeshi ôkaru nobe ni nenamashi mono o	We aren't weary of the blossoms -- so why     do we return home? Ah, we could have slept in fields of many maidenflowers!
Sadafun was born probably around 870; in 874 he and his father, a descendent of Emperor Kanmu, were demoted to commoner status (and given the Taira name). He held various middling military and administrative positions between 891 and his death in 923. Much as stories of Narihira's amorous adventures two generations before were turned into Tales of Ise, Sadafun's became the basis of Tales of Heichû; all of his nine poems in the Kokinshu are also in that. ¶ Sagano ("rugged high field") is in the hills west of Kyoto. And with this departure, we FINALLY are done with the maidenflowers. I would celebrate, but the next round of punny names is even worse ...
239.  Fujiwara no Toshiyuki A poem from the poetry contest at the house of Prince Koresada.
nanihito ka kite nugi-kakeshi fukibakama kuru aki-goto ni nobe o niowasu	What kind of person comes here, takes off, and hangs up     these "purple-trousers" that perfume up the meadow every autumn when I come?
Fujibakama (Eupatorium fortunei, a species of thoroughwort or boneset) is another of the seven flowers of autumn, a shrub with clusters of lavender blooms early in the season, whose name just happens to sound like "purple pants" -- which is our cue for a round of poetic sniggering into sleeves. That its sweet-smelling flowers were indeed used to perfume clothes only adds to the japing. Its name is another key 5-syllable word missing a case-marker: here it could be subject/topic of "to perfume" or direct address, but the latter's a syntactic stretch. There's a debate over wither to understand kite in line 2 as "come and" or "put on and" -- the latter would avoid a clunky repetition, but it's not like it's a brilliant poem regardless. In the original, it's actually the first half that's the relative clause modifying the flowers, rather than the second, but a literal rendering deemphasizes the "who" question too much.
240.  Ki no Tsurayuki Written on "purple-trousers" and sent to someone.
yadori seshi hito no katami ka fujibakama wasuraregataki ka ni nioitsutsu	A memento of, perhaps, someone who slept here?     The purple trousers keep perfuming the air with a scent that's hard to forget.
This seems to be referring to the common practice of men leaving behind a piece of clothing after spending the night with a lover, both as a keepsake in itself and as a reminder of his personal fragrance. If we take the plant's name as punning in this way, then Tsurayuki's using a female persona; if we take the plants as literal, however, he would be writing to a male friend. Or, given Tsurayuki's skill, perhaps he intends us to layer both meanings together in our minds. In any case, this is a more elegant use of the plant's name than the poems before and after it.
241.  Sosei Written on "purple-trousers."
nushi shiranu ka koso nioere aki no no ni ta ga nugikakeshi fujibakama zo mo	It's fragrant, this scent that's from some unknown owner.     Who was it who doffed and hung in the autumn field these here "purple-trousers"!?
Really, Sosei, the naif pose isn't fooling anyone. I rendered the syntax a little more creatively than usual (the final clause is actually a fragment) but the !? is literal.
242.  Taira no Sadafun Topic unknown.
ima yori wa uete dani miji hanasusuki ho ni izuru aki wa wabishikarikeri	I'll plant them no more, nor even look upon them:     when the miscanthus flowers plume, it is clearly weary autumn -- and it's lonely.
Fortunately, fujibakama poems don't last nearly as long as maidenflowers -- on to some other late bloomers, continuing with another of the seven flowers of autumn: susuki (zebra grass, Miscanthus sinensis), a type of miscanthus or pampas grass admired for its silver-white plumes. Line 4 of the original has some multilayered punning: ho ni izuru means "put (out) plumes/heads/ears" for the miscanthus and idiomatically "become conspicuous/obvious" for aki, which while it's written with the kanji for "autumn" can also be heard as "being weary of" -- giving possible readings of "autumn when (the miscanthus) puts out plumes" / "(when) autumn becomes obvious" / "(someone's) being weary (of me) becomes obvious." Compare #34 and #92 for similar resolutions about flowers.
243.  Ariwara no Muneyana A poem from the poetry contest held in the palace of the consort in the Kanpyô era.
aki no no no kusa no tamoto ka hanasusuki ho ni idete maneku sode to miyuramu	The kimono sleeves of the autumn field-grasses?     It seems I can see the miscanthus flower-plumes clearly beckoning to us.
Note the implied wind. The polite way at the time for a woman to beckon to someone was with her sleeve rather than bare hand -- which plays into the eroticism of sleeves (see for ex #22). "To us" is interpolation both for clarity and to avoid repeating "sleeve," as that would clunk in a way the original, which uses two synonyms, does not.
244.  Sosei (from the same contest)
ware nomi ya aware to omowamu kirigirisu naku yuukage no yamato nadeshiko	Is it I alone who thinks, "Ah -- so moving!"?     Japanese wild pinks in the low light of evening when the crickets are chirping.
Like Tomonori, Sosei is a poet where the sound of his language is a factor -- but where Tomonori goes for graceful clarity, Sosei is often lush. Here, there's all these w- and y- syllables heavy on the u's and o's interrupted by a middle line of ki/gi/ri's, augmented by a poetic term for "twilight." Both the kirigirisu and nadeshiko, another of the seven flowers of autumn, are momentary returns (see #196 and #167). Overtone to be aware of: since at least the time of the Man'yoshu, yamato nadeshiko ("Japanese wild pink") was used as a term for a beloved woman (and today refers to the traditional ideal of a feminine woman).
245.  Author unknown Topic unknown.
midori naru hitotsukusa to zo haru wa mishi aki wa iroiro no hana ni zo arikeru	In spring, being green, they seemed indeed like they were     all one kind of plant: in autumn, I see instead they have various flowers.
On to generic late flowers. The two halves of the poem are tightly structured as antitheses in a very Chinese style. I suspect, however, the botany!fail merely expresses aristocratic unconcern for mundane details. The expression of surprise in the final line doesn't really come through in my version.
246.  (Author unknown) (Topic unknown.)
momokusa no hana no himo toku aki no no ni omoi-tawaremu hito na togame so	I'll disport myself in autumn fields where flowers     of various plants loose the sashes of their buds -- people, don't fault me for this!
Textual issue: my base text has a nonsensical direct-object marker o in l.3 (in effect, "I'll frolic a field"); all other texts I've consulted emend this to the locative marker ni ("I'll frolic in a field"), and I concur. Himo [o] toku idomatically means "to blossom," but literally "to untie (one's) sash," with the strong connotation of going to bed with someone, giving the feared censure a sexual component. Momokusa (lit. "hundred plants") is another use of "hundred" as generically large number, so idiomatically "many."
247.  (Author unknown) (Topic unknown.)
tsukikusa ni koromo wa suramu asatsuyu ni nurete no nochi wa utsuroinu tomo	I shall take my robe and dye it with dayflower     -- even though after the morning dew has soaked it, the color will have faded.
Another poem that appears in the Man'yoshu (VII:1351, with a small verbal difference that doesn't change the meaning). Tsukikusa (lit. "moon-grass," now called tsuyukusa = "dew-grass") is the Asiatic dayflower (Commelina communis), a small plant with bright blue flowers in the mornings in late summer and early autumn that was used to make a blue dye (and later a blue ink) that faded easily. With both blossom and dye being brief, it is a natural metaphor for transience. It's possible to read the flower as representing a fickle lover, either male or female -- dying one's heart being a common idiom for falling in love.
248.  Henjô When the Ninna Emperor was [still] a prince, while on his way to view Furu Waterfall, he stayed overnight at the house of Henjô's mother where the garden had been made to resemble autumn fields. While they were talking, Henjô composed and presented [this poem].
sato wa arete hito wa furinishi yado nare ya niwa mo magaki mo aki no nora naru	Perhaps it's because the household has decayed and     the owner grown old, that both garden and its wall are like the fields of autumn.
The Ninna Emperor was Kôkô (see #21) and Furu Waterfall, now called Momoono Falls, is on the Yamato River near Nara (close to Isonokami). Henjô is taking polite self-depreciation of one's hospitality to humbler levels than usual because of the prince's imperial rank. Grammatical uncertainty: the final verb can be read as "is" or "become" -- I incline to the former because the latter's present tense reads oddly against the perfective growing old, but it requires interpolating "like" to sound natural in English. What doesn't come through in translation: these are, for once, agricultural fields.

And that wraps it up for Book IV, the first half of autumn. Book V, being the second half, is a little more obsessive focused on the leaves, ending in barren branches.

(Index for this series)

---L.

Comments

[candyfairy15.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for such a prompt reply! I didn't really expect it:-)

That's interesting, perhaps then that poem is from another book... though the anthology states it's from Kokinshu. Strange. Thanks again for your help, though:-)

Btw, I took the liberty of peeking at your book of translations and I must say I love it! I'll make sure to grab a copy once my finances like me again. Nice idea to show a preview. Have a great day!

[larryhammer]

Apparently LJ's comment notifications widgit is borked again, as it only just told me about this. Sheesh.

Thankee for the kind words. I hope you like the collection.

---L.

[candyfairy15.livejournal.com]

:-) Livejournal is weird this way, I just found your comment notification in my spam folder! Though in all fairness my email provider is not the best either.

I just bought it, so I guess it speaks for itself:-) Thanks for the pains you took to translate it, it's lovely.

... and I still hope you will stumble on that poem I'm searching one day:-D

Have a great summer.

L. (as well:-P)

[larryhammer]

Thankee. Have a good one yourself!

---L.