Basket O! | fine basket bearing | truel O | fine truel bearing | this knoll upon | herb-plucking maid! | your home-place tell me | your name too tell me; | Yamato’s land | everywhere | I hold rule over, | all where | I hold rule over, | me in sooth | as husband call me | your homeplace too, your name too, tell me!
In dealing with the less easy texts of the Manyôshiu the following considerations must be kept in mind:—
The honour-forms (see below) indicate a (logical) second or third person, or something connected with such a person, directly or indirectly.
The particle wo may often be rendered as if ni, or as an exclamation, or as if followed by some form of omofu. I do not regard it as in itself a quasi-conjunction. The various functions of no must be kept in mind.
The frequency of inversion in order of words must not be forgotten. The makura kotoba may be ruled out, as well as prefaces, exordiums, introductions, and the like—thus the kernel of meaning may be got at, and the decoration then added.
It must be recollected that of the elements of the vocabulary very few can be exactly rendered by a single English word, their connotation for the most part is more or less different from that of any possible English equivalent. In the Glossary an exhaustive definition of the meaning is not attempted, enough only is given to suggest the translation of the sentence in which the word appears. Hence since meanings came to change in the course of time, those given being only what are required for these texts sometimes differ from the meanings found in the foreign dictionaries, all of which are very imperfect—very seldom, however, from those offered by that excellent native dictionary the Kotoba no Izumi.
THE LANGUAGE OF THE MANYÔSHIU
I found the following remarks upon the somewhat lengthy, and—to me—not always very clear, observations of Masazumi concerning the language of the Manyôshiu contained in his sôron or General Introduction.
Phonetic Contractions. These are not uncommon, and are principally vocalic. Such are wagimo (my sister) for waga imo; ariso (wild shore) for ara iso; kafuchi (within the rivers) for kaha uchi; amori (descent from heaven) for ame ori; kurenawi (a shade of red) kure no awi, lit. an indigo (i.e. a dye) brought from China; konure (tree-top) ko no ure; ke (come, pass) ki he—ke nagaku kohishi, long time loved; ke no kono goro ha, a time lately gone by; arumi (wild sea) ara umi; futsuma (stout horse) futo uma. The above are substantival, others are adjectival or verbal, as:—