Sing, Cuckoo, Sing - Sumer is icumen in
Ross Bender
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
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Christopher Hepburn
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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
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
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
Bonnie McClure
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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 5th of the 4th month (of Enryaku 15, 796). There is another poem by Kanmu dated to a hunting trip in the 8th 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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