Sing, Cuckoo, Sing - Sumer is icumen in

[Ross Bender]

Here's a waka sung by Emperor Kanmu at a wine banquet in May of 796. I'm not much good at translating poetry, so are there any waka experts out there who might give it a try? It's in man'yōgana. Special props to any who can quote Ezra Pound's take on this medieval English round. Hint - 'hototogisu' -  保登々擬須

氣左能阿沙氣、奈呼登以非都留、保登々擬須、伊萬毛奈可奴加、比登能綺久倍久

Ross Bender

The Japanese Imperial Institution in the Eighth Century - Kindle edition by Bender, Ross. Religion & Spirituality Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

[Duthie, Torquil]

Dear Ross,

 

けさのあさけ・なこ「く？」といひつる・ほととぎす・いまもなかぬか・ひとのきくべく

 

I couldn’t make sense of 奈呼 so I searched around and it seems Kojima Noriyuki couldn’t make sense of it either and thought it was an error. His text of the poem has ママ written alongside 奈呼.  My best quick guess at a translation would be something like “The cuckoo bird that they say sang this morning at dawn--will it not sing now, so that others (i.e, “I”) may hear it?” This is reading  as 奈呼 (なこ) as なく. The last two phrases いまもなかぬか・ひとのきくべく suggest that the poet could be addressing the cuckoo (“Won’t you sing now”), so I perhaps it could also be “Cuckoo bird—they tell me you sang at dawn this morning, so won’t you sing to me now so people (I) may hear you.” けさのあさけ is a fairly common phrase in Man’yoshu, and いまもなかぬか appears both in MYS and in KKS. ひとのきくべく is not common but ひとのしるべくis a common phrase.

 

Best wishes,

 

Torquil

 

 

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[Chris Kern]

The 新編国歌大観 voices the second line as なごといひつる although it's hard to know what their interpretation is (the entries for なご in the 国語大辞典 and the 時代別 aren't much help).

-Chris Kern, Auburn University

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[Christopher Hepburn]

Morning hath broken

Yet full oft hath it already cried

Hototogisu

Shall it not yet sing again,

That some might hear its song? 

Ancient music— although I prefer winter is icumen in. 

Christopher Hepburn, PhD

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[Duthie, Torquil]

Now that I have had a bit more time to look at the poem more carefully, I realized that the usual ongana reading of呼in Man’yoshu is を, which would give us なをといひつる. This doesn’t make any sense, but I see that someone published an entire article on this graph in this poem in Kokugo Kokubun in 1980 (“呼”考―「気左能阿沙気奈呼登以非都留」―), so I will check it and report back.

 

Torquil

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[萬井 良大]

Dear Ross,

The emperor Kanmu, eagerly awaiting the cuckoo's self-introduction, does not fear the arrival of winter.

Best regards,

Yoshihiro Man'i


On 2026/04/23 5:58, Ross Bender wrote:
> Here's a waka sung by Emperor Kanmu at a wine banquet in May of 796. I'm not much good at translating poetry, so are there any waka experts out there who might give it a try? It's in man'yōgana. Special props to any who can quote Ezra Pound's take on this medieval English round. Hint - 'hototogisu' - *保登々擬須*
>
> *氣左能阿沙氣、奈呼登以非都留、保登々擬須、伊萬毛奈可奴加、比登能綺久倍久*
> *
> *
> *Ross Bender*
> The Japanese Imperial Institution in the Eighth Century - Kindle edition by Bender, Ross. Religion & Spirituality Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com. <https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Imperial-Institution-Eighth-Century-ebook/dp/B0GPLZHQK6?crid=1GVQHL8TUEPRO&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.N8jjpPF8TSlkVaeLTi2GGgoTukBl1Frrt5v0xQoXIIXGjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.CIDM_MmX46XmfEf5pgsYZ2swN8fKdf_3vouJR1rjZpM&dib_tag=se&keywords=ross+bender+the+japanese+imperial+institution&qid=1776891337&s=digital-text&sprefix=%2Cdigital-text%2C86&sr=1-1>**
> image.png
> *
> *
> *
> *

>
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[GUELBERG Niels]

The Gagentsuusaishou by Kido Chitate, printed in 1861, has in it's fourth (last) volume on page 9r (the 10th page on Waseda's PDF-file edition, https://archive.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kosho/ho02/ho02_00606/ho02_00606_0004/ho02_00606_0004.pdf) the following comment:

雅言通載抄（がげんつうさいしょう）

著者. 城戸, 千楯 キド, チタテ

文久元[1861]

卷四（終）

九オ：

氣左能阿沙氣、奈呼登以非都留、

ケサノアサケ、ナコトイヒツル

「呼」字不審、可考。

So it may be a mistake.

Niels

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差出人: pm...@googlegroups.com <pm...@googlegroups.com> が Christopher Hepburn <chrishe...@gmail.com> の代理で送信
送信日時: 2026年4月23日 11:29
宛先: pm...@googlegroups.com <pm...@googlegroups.com>
件名: Re: [PMJS] Sing, Cuckoo, Sing - Sumer is icumen in

 

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[Bonnie McClure]

Dear Torquil and Ross,

It sounds as if it is responding to MYS 1949/1954: 

霍公鳥　今朝之旦明尓　鳴都流波　君将聞可　朝宿疑将寐

ほととぎす　けさのあさけに　なきつるは　きみききけむか　あさいかねけむ

with older kun for the last two lines of きみきくらむか　あさいかぬらむ　

When the hototogisu

sang 

at dawn this morning,

Did you hear it?

Or were you still sleeping?

It may be that this was a reasonably well-known poem, because various versions of it appear in the Heian-period Hitomaro-shu and Akahito-shu. From the 私家集大成:

人麿Ⅲ  112  ホトヽキスケサノアサマニナキツルハ　キミキクランカアサイカヌラン

赤人Ⅰ  230  ほとゝきすけさのあさきりなきつるを　きみはえきかすいやはねつらん

赤人Ⅱ  110  ほとゝきすけさのあさきりなきつるを　きみはたきかすいやはねつらん

赤人Ⅲ  121  ほとゝきすけさのあさけになきつるを　君はたきかていやはねつらん

Bonnie

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[Duthie, Torquil]

Hi Bonnie,

 

Yes, I think you are right—that would explain the 「といひつる」in Kanmu’s poem.

 

The MYS poem is in the 夏雑歌section of Vol. 10, and Kanmu’s poem is dated to the 5^th of the 4^th month (of Enryaku 15, 796). There is another poem by Kanmu dated to a hunting trip in the 8^th month of 798, which uses the phrase けさのあさけ about the cry of a deer: 今朝の朝明け　鳴くちふ鹿の　その声を　聞かずはいかじ　夜は更けぬとも（氣佐能阿狭氣　奈久知布之賀農　曽乃己恵遠　岐嘉受波伊賀之　興波布氣奴止毛）and the four instances of けさのあさけ in MYS all include the word なく（MYS X: 1949 with ほととぎすand VIII: 1513, VIII: 1540, XVII: 3947 with 雁）. So even though 奈呼 is a problem, I think it has to be read なく。

 

Best wishes,

 

Torquil

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[James]

Dear Torquil, Ross, and Bonnie,

I got into the weeds with just a bit and I took a quick look at 呼. 

I agree with the なく reading. It’s an uncommon reading to be sure, but in some reconstructions of Old Chinese, 呼 is thought to be either a glottal /h/ or possibly velar fricative /ɣ/ (呼 χwo), a sound that is found in some English dialects in place of /g/. It could have been close to /k/ as in “ko.”

 

It was hard to find a ko reading anywhere, but the most prominent example is probably 卑弥呼 himiko / pimeko the Yamato (Yamatai) sovereign described in the Wei Zhi. But it’s also interesting that the Middle Chinese reconstructions (e.g., xo) point to something closer to ご gwo or こ kwo “child” in ko-rui (nago?), as opposed to otsu-rui ko-, which would be a more likely approximation or variant of the attributive auxiliary なく…

-James

On Apr 23, 2026, at 3:00 PM, 'Duthie, Torquil' via PMJS: Listserv <pm...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



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[Kyoko Sano]

Dear James, Bonnie, Torquil, Ross,

Hi, everyone, the problem sounds very interesting.

James's comment made me think that the issue must come from a phonetic problem. So, I consulted Frellesvig (2010) and found that there are some phonetic restrictions, especially the realization of back vowels, in pJ (proto-Japanese).  For example, in the root morphemes, /o/ in the short vowel (Otsu-rui) didn't occur with /a/, /wo/, /u/.  But this restriction doesn't matter, since /nakwo/ is not one of them.

Then, I found in p.47 that there is "Mid-vowel raising' in pJ.  The mid vowels /*e/  and /*o/ in final-position followed the course of a phonetic diphthongization as [wo], and it is eventually realized either as /o/ or a high vowel /u/.  The examples given are, ywo-ri ~ yuri 'from; behind' and mwokwo ~ muko 'bridegroom'.  From these, my guess is there might be some phonemic variation in [nakwo] and [naku] in OJ.

Best,

Kyoko

On Tue, May 5, 2026 at 10:52 PM James <jamesw...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Torquil, Ross, and Bonnie, I got into the weeds with just a bit and I took a quick look at 呼. I agree with the なく reading. It’s an uncommon reading to be sure, but in some reconstructions of Old Chinese, 呼 is thought to be either a glottal

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[John Kupchik]

Dear Kyoko,

/Naku/ is both the final form (終止形) and the attributive form (連体形) of the verb /nak/ 'to cry, to sing' in the standard dialect of OJ, commonly referred to as Western Old Japanese. In Eastern Old Japanese /nako/ is an attributive form, whereas the final form is /naku/. Of course, Kanmu didn't speak Eastern Old Japanese, and the attributive form cannot occur directly before the quotative particle /tə/ anyway, as among the two forms only the final form is grammatical in this context. In Proto-Japanese the final suffix was *u (not *o), so a phonemic variation of the kind seen in /moko/ ~ /muko/ 'bridegroom' is not analogous here.

Best, 

John

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[Ross Bender]

Many thanks to all for their suggested translations of Kanmu's waka. I hadn't realized that the reading of   奈呼  would provide so much grist for the linguistic mills. 

 

 I was  interested by John Kupchik's assertion that Kanmu didn't speak Eastern Old Japanese, (but presumably Western Old Japanese), and it made me wonder what the evidence is. As far as I know the senmyō  inscribed in the Rikkokushi attributed to Kanmu are in WOJ - is this sufficient to prove his spoken language? This reminded me of the late Edward KIdder's rhetorical question "Himiko spoke proto-Japanese, but how widely was she understood at the time?"

Of course Proto Japanese is a construct hatched by historical linguists, but so is Old Japanese. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) At any rate the whole problem of what we can know about the King's speech from written evidence is a fascinating one. 

Ross Bender

Amazon.com: SENMYŌ: Old Japanese Imperial Edicts in the National Histories 697-887 eBook : Bender, Ross, Bender, Ross Lynn : Kindle Store

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