another kanandrum

[Jack Stoneman]

Dear PMJS Members,

I have another kana question prompted by Chris Kern's question about manuscript transcription. We have a book here at BYU from the 1660s called Kasen 哥仙. It's an early printed sanjurokkasen collection. The Hitomaro poem reads:

ほのヽヽとあかしがうらの朝霧にしまかくれゆく舟おしぞおもふ

I am puzzled by the use of o お instead of wo を here after fune. I assumed it was a mistake by the calligrapher. There are some other oddities of kana usage in the book that support an assumption that the calligrapher may have made a mistake here. Nevertheless, I have located a handful of other sources that use o お instead of wo を in this poem: a Genroku 7 printed book; an 1831 printed book; an 1852 uikiyoe; a Meiji 34 printed book; a 1912 printed meishoki.

My question to those who are more familiar with matters of kana choice, or the history of the inscription of this poem is: Should I assume a mistake in kana choice here? or should I assume this is a legitimate variant? even though it seems grammatically inaccurate?

Many thanks in advance,

Jack

[GUELBERG Niels]

Dear Jack, 

「を」and「お」were already mixed up in the Heian period, so Teika was one of the first who tried to correct the use. 

It sounds the same, and so you can also find in Edo period manuscripts をんな（女）＝おんな、 をとめ（少女）＝おとめ、 をさない（幼）＝おさない and so on. 

てにをは are more rare cases, but you can also find 「わ」instead of 「は」.

If your calligrapher had no book in front and copied the poem by hearing it, he could easily made a bad choice. 

(Another problem: the so-called 'historic transcription' which we learn at our universities, is an artificial construct. 

In historical times, they didn't need it.)

Niels

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差出人: pm...@googlegroups.com <pm...@googlegroups.com> が Jack Stoneman <jackst...@gmail.com> の代理で送信
送信日時: 2022年9月23日 5:15
宛先: PMJS: Premodern Japanese Studies <pm...@googlegroups.com>
件名: [PMJS] another kanandrum

 

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[Gian-Piero Persiani]

Another possibility is that the unstable orthography may have to do with the lively interpretive debate around the poem. Some medieval esoteric commentaries interpret the poem as a Buddhist allegory on death and as a lament for the death of prince Takechi. The prince is likened to a boat because of his great compassion and care for the well-being of the people. The boat hiding behind the island symbolizes the passing of the prince, which prompted Hitomaro to ponder death (shi) and impermanence. In this interpretation, the last line could be parsed as an honorific "o" preceding the noun “death” (( ºΔº )〣). So much history behind just one letter!

Gian-Piero Persiani

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pmjs/OSAPR01MB3059147A3BE31D56140CD7C3C2519%40OSAPR01MB3059.jpnprd01.prod.outlook.com.