Footnote 17: [(return)]
In ancient Japanese the word séko signified either husband or elder brother. The beginning of the poem might also be rendered thus:—"When I feel a secret longing for my husband," etc.
Footnote 18: [(return)]
"To exchange jewel-pillows" signifies to use each other's arms for pillows. This poetical phrase is often used in the earliest Japanese literature. The word for jewel, tama, often appears in compounds as an equivalent of "precious," "dear," etc.
Footnote 19: [(return)]
For kofuru.
Footnote 20: [(return)]
Or "satisfy itself." A literal rendering is difficult.
Footnote 21: [(return)]
At different times, in the history of Japanese female costume, different articles of dress were called by this name. In the present instance, the hiré referred to was probably a white scarf, worn about the neck and carried over the shoulders to the breast, where its ends were either allowed to hang loose, or were tied into an ornamental knot. The hiré was often used to make signals with, much as handkerchiefs are waved to-day for the same purpose;—and the question uttered in the poem seems to signify: "Can that be Tanabata waving her scarf—to call me?" In very early times, the ordinary costumes worn were white.
Footnote 22: [(return)]
Or, "the creaking of the oar." (The word kaji to-day means "helm";—the single oar, or scull, working upon a pivot, and serving at once for rudder and oar, being now called ro.) The mist passing across the Amanogawa is, according to commentators, the spray from the Star-god's oar.
Footnote 23: [(return)]
Lit. "pull-boat" (hiki-funé),—a barge or boat pulled by a rope.
Footnote 24: [(return)]
Nubatama no yo might better be rendered by some such phrase as "the berry-black night,"—but the intended effect would be thus lost in translation. Nubatama-no (a "pillow-word") is written with characters signifying "like the black fruits of Karasu-Ōgi;" and the ancient phrase "nubatama no yo" therefore may be said to have the same meaning as our expressions "jet-black night," or "pitch-dark night."
Footnote 25: [(return)]
Composed by the famous poet Ōtomo no Sukuné Yakamochi, while gazing at the Milky Way, on the seventh night of the seventh month of the tenth year of Tampyō (A.D. 738). The pillow-word in the third line (maso-kagami) is untranslatable.
Footnote 26: [(return)]
Asobimé, a courtesan: lit., "sporting-woman." The Éta and other pariah classes furnished a large proportion of these women. The whole meaning of the poem is as follows: "See that young wanton with her lantern! It is a pretty sight—but so is the sight of a fox, when the creature kindles his goblin-fire and assumes the shape of a girl. And just as your fox-woman will prove to be no more than an old horse-bone, so that young courtesan, whose beauty deludes men to folly, may be nothing better than an Éta."