[Second Song of the Princess.[1]]
“When the sun shall hide behind the green mountains, in the night [black as] the true jewels of the moor will I come forth. Coming radiant with smiles like the morning sun, [thine] arms white as rope of paper-mulberry-bark shall softly pat [my] breast soft as the melting snow; and patting [each other] interlaced, streching out and pillowing [ourselves] on [each other’s] jewel-arms,—true jewel-arms,—and with outstretched legs, will we sleep. So speak not too lovingly, Thine Augustness the Deity-of-Eight-Thousand-Spears! The tradition of the thing, too, this!”[2]
Quamobrem eâ nocte non coierunt, sed sequentis diei nocte auguste coierunt.
- ↑ There is no break in the text; but the commentators rightly consider the following to be a separate poem.
- ↑ The import of this very plain-spoken poem needs no elucidation.—Nubatama (here rendered “true jewels of the moor”) is the Pillow-Word for things black or related to darkness. The “true jewels of the moor” are supposed to be the jet-black berries of the hiafugi (pron. hiōgi, Ixia chinensis). The whole etymology is, however, not absolutely certain.—Of which of the two lovers the words “coming radiant” with “smiles” are spoken, is not clear; but they probably refer to the
commentators) is a Pillow-Word of somewhat obscure derivation.—The word chidori (rendered “dotterel” throughout this translation) denotes in its modem acceptation, according to Messrs. Blakiston and Pryer, “any kind of sandpiper, plover, or dotterel.” Its proper and original signification is, however, greatly debated by the commentators, and some think that it is not the specific name of any kind of bird, but stands simply by apocope for tachi-dori, “rising bird,” thus designating any kind of small bird that rises and flies along near the beach.—The word na-dori (here, in accordance with Moribe’s view, rendered “gentle bird”) is taken by Motowori to mean simply “gentle,” “compliant.” But both the construction and the context seem to impose on us the interpretation here given. Keichiyu, in his “Kō-gan Shō,” interprets the whole passage differently; but in order to do so he, without sufficient authority, changes the readings of the text into wa tori, “my bird,” and na tori, “thy bird.”—The refrain is the same as in the previous song.
