23 kuma mo okazu = kuma (sumi) mo ochizu, a not infrequent expression in the Manyôshiu.
24 omohite so aga kuru tabi ga ki-he nagashi.
25 ke = ki-he (kuru-henuru).
1, 2 karu kara, probably a designed jingle.
4, 5 would I were but a cormorant, then I should be free from homesickness.
As to the m. k. shikitahe and umasahafu: shikitahe, spread-cloth, seems originally to have meant a garment worn to sleep in, or a coverlet. It is applied to night, sleeping, night garments, pillows, &c.
Umasahafu is the reading preferred by the Kogi to that in the text, ajisahafu. Of neither can any certain explanation be given. On the whole I am inclined to prefer the one suggested of umasahafu under that word in the Kogi’s list of makura kotoba.—umashi-aha-fu, field of sweet millet; ahafu = millet-field in K. 143, n. 2, fu is perhaps an original form of hafu or hae. The ancient Japanese f (perhaps derived from a lost p) was something like the Highland ‘fwh’ in ‘fwhat’ of which the different elements were prominent in connexion with particular vowel sounds. As significant of numerousness, it is applied to mure (flock, crowd) contracted into me (to which through a homophon meaning ‘woman’ it is applied in the text) as well as sometimes to yoru, night (homophon of yoru, gather together, collect). There are parallel etymologies quoted by the Kogi, but it is needless to detail them here. Umashiahafu would contract into umasahafu; umashi may be written with a character aji, meaning taste, savour—hence ajisahafu, and of this the aji might be confounded with its homonym aji (a kind of teal or widgeon), explaining a common way of writing the expression—teal-marsh-abundant.
For umasahafu, shikitaheno see List m. k.
83
Minume no ura wo suguru toki Akahito ga yomeru uta hitotsu.