Repetitive or cumulative expressions (kasane kotoba) are common in the Manyôshiu and contain, mostly, a quibble in meaning or rhyme in sound. Such are chichi no mi no chichi (father = chichi = maiden-hair tree—the quibble is on the two chichi, and the double meaning of mi, fruit and person). Hahasoba no haha, mother (haha), as of the oak (hahaso = Quercus dentata), &c. Shiga no karasaki sakiku araba (here the rhyme is Karasaki (Cape Kara in Shiga) and sakiku araba (if flourish)). Such expressions are explained in the notes or glossary.
Other repetitive expressions are simply emphatic or poetic: Tsudohi tsudohi imashite, they (the gods) assembling, kamu hafuri hafuri, burying—burying him (a mikado or miko) as a god; ake no sohobune sohobune, a red red-stained red-stained-ship, &c.
Words relating to the Sovran. Sumeramikoto (Supreme Majesty) is found only in the dai (arguments), not in the uta. The commonest term in the latter is Ohokimi (great Lord, grand seigneur), but this expression is not confined to the Sovran. Other terms are sumeragi (sumerogi, suberogi) and sumerami; -gi = prince, mi = princess (conf. Izanagi and Izanami, Inviting Male and Inviting Female (K.)); but see Aston, Shintô. What sume means is uncertain, it may be connected with sube (shiru), universally know, i.e. govern the land. Other expressions are kamuro kamu subera or sumera or sumero, kamu adding the notion of ‘divine’. Ohokimi, ‘chief’, I take to be the oldest; the other forms smack of China. As to ‘ro’, see above remarks on the particle ‘ro’. In the Kogi etymology ro = the re o of are oya in kamu are oya = god-born ancestry.
Mikado means grand gate or palace, and by metonymy came to signify its lord, just as at the present day miya (grand mansion) denotes an imperial prince. Mikado also means ‘sovran dominion’ as in toho-mikado, distant palace, that is, wide dominion, sometimes applied specially to the Tsukushi government, to Korea, or even to China, as on the confines of, but still within, the authority of the Ohokimi of Japan. The following phrases may be here noticed—mikoto kashikomi, dread majesty, Ohokimi no make (or hiki) no manimani, in obeisance to the Ohokimi’s will or appointment.
Mi has several meanings which must be distinguished. They are (1) an honour-prefix, grand, great; (2) prefix of praise, εὐ = ma, true, real; (3) self; (4) body, person; (5) a stem of miru, see (6) root of midzu; (7) fruit of tree or herb; (8) the numeral three; (9) as a termination se wo hayami, swift the stream; hiromi, broad-like; fukami, deep.
Of the intensive prefixes i, ka, and ta, no explanation has yet been given. They resemble Greek ζα. Examples are i-yuki, ka-guroki, ta-moto-horu.
For the purposes of the present work, Dr. Aston’s grammar of the written language (third edition) is much the most useful.
THE SCRIPT OF THE MANYÔSHIU
The Lays are written wholly in Chinese characters. But these are employed in several very peculiar ways, and the texts as they stand are completely unintelligible to a Chinese, even to a Japanese, who has not specially studied them. In all the editions, however, except the Riyakuge, the columns of text are accompanied by a kana transliteration—in the Riyakuge the kana (hira) transliteration is given separately from the text.
At the date of the compilation of the Anthology—the middle of the eighth century—neither of the existing Japanese syllabaries had been invented. Their creation is ascribed to the learned priest Kûkai (Kôbô Daishi), the Doctor Promulgator of the Law of Buddha, who died in 834, nearly a hundred years later than the date of the final tanka of the Manyôshiu. The Chinese character had therefore, perforce, to be employed in writing down the lays collected in the manner set forth in the volume of translations. The ideographs were used in part phonetically, in part lexicographically, as they had already been used in writing the Kojiki and the poems cited in that history, and in the almost contemporaneous but very different Nihongi.