Poem 2
Text:
持統天皇御せい
春すきて夏きにけらし白たへの
ころもほすてふあまのかく山
春過ぎて haru sugi-te
夏来にけらし natu ki ni kerasi
白栲の sirotahe no
衣干すてふ koromo hosu tefu
天の香具山 ama no kaguyama
Notes:
春過ぎて: Classical Japanese (as well as colloquial modern Japanese) does not require any particle between a subject and predicate, or object and predicate (as seen in lines 1, 2, and 4).
来にけらし: This parses as ki (連用形 of ku) + ni (連用形 of the suffix ぬ, indicating completion) + kerasi, a contraction of keri and rasi. keri is a somewhat complicated suffix; in poetry it almost always indicates that the speaker is just noticing something that is already true or has occurred (sometimes called the “surprise” keri). rasi is more or less the same as modern らしい in this case. The meaning of the whole line is something like “It seems that summer is already here.” In contrast to the first poem, which was one sentence, the end of the second line is the end of a sentence. This is sometimes known as 二句切（にくぎり）. The remaining three lines are a modifier (line 3 and 4) for a noun (line 5); ending a poem with a noun in this manner is known as 体言止め（たいげんどめ）. It's particularly associated with poetry of the 新古今集 era (see below).
白栲の: This is a word literally representing a white tree, but also referring to white clothes woven from the bark of the tree, or simply the color white. In this case, the whole phrase is something called a 枕詞（まくらことば）. These phrases, almost always 5 mora, are used to fill out the meter of a poem and always connect to specific words – if you're familiar with Homeric poetry, it's similar to the “stock epithets” found in The Iliad and The Odyssey. They are most associated with poetry from the 万葉集 era, particularly the longer poems. In some cases the exact meanings of the 枕詞 are unknown or disputed. In this case the phrase is a 枕詞 for 衣 in the next line, although it's also possible to simply read it as the literal “white clothes” meaning.
衣干す: Modern Japanese still uses 干す with clothing to refer to hanging them out to dry. The 衣 here may be some sort of sacred garment associated with religious ceremonies on the mountain (although see the commentary section below).
てふ: This is a shortening of といふ (と言ふ) and is usually read as ちょう when the poem is read out loud now. This essentially is the same as modern という used to describe something, and means that the mountain is known as a place where clothes are dried. It may indicate that this is a legend about the mountain.
天の香具山: 天 in this case means “holy” or “heavenly”. The mountain is one of the so-called 大和三山. It is in modern-day 橿原市（かきわらし） in Nara-ken. The Japanese wikipedia article has more information and a picture. Aside from this poem, it is famous in poetry for Man'yoshu poem 2, in which Emperor Jomei stands on it to view the kingdom.
Translation: It seems that spring has passed and summer has already come. Holy Kaguya mountain, where it is said they dry white clothing.
Author: Empress Jito (645-702), the 41st Emperor in the traditional order of succession, and the daughter of Tenji. Unlike the previous poem, this poem originally appears in the 万葉集 attributed to Jito, making this poem's authenticity much more likely.
Source: 新古今和歌集 (shin kokin wakashu), the 8th imperial anthology and the last of the so-called 八大集. It appears there with the 詞書 of 題知らず, as with the previous poem. The poem was taken originally from the 万葉集, where it appears as poem 28 in a slightly different form (line 2 is 来（きた）るらし and line 4 is 衣干したり, したり being equivalent to the modern している or してある).
Teika himself was one of the compilers of the 新古今集. It took a number of poems from old sources like the Man'yoshu (which was not an imperially commissioned collection), especially when the poetic techniques seemed to match those in vogue at the time. The reason for the different form of the poem could be due to alternate methods of reading the 万葉仮名, or it could be because the compilers did not get the poem directly from the Man'yoshu but instead one of the later sources that drew from it.
Commentary:
The 体言止 technique has the effect of making the connection between the first 2 and last 3 lines less obvious. It seems to be here that the last three lines give the reason why the poet now sees that summer has come.
However, the exact link between the clothes drying and summer is a subject of debate, and even the exact meaning of 衣干す is a common topic of discussion in older commentaries. The surface, literal meaning is one possibility – this may be related to a change of clothing due to the change of seasons. Either this represents literally people living on the mountain drying their clothes, or it may refer to a legend where gods came down to the mountain to dry their white clothing.
Other commentaries, though, propose several other symbolic readings of the poem. One suggestion is that the flowers of the trees on the mountain look like white clothing drying. Another is that the mountain is veiled in mist in the spring, and once the mist clears in the summer you can see the mountain clearly (明白), thus using the drying white clothes as a symbol for that. Or, the mist on the mountain may be the white clothes themselves – in summer, the mountain has taken off its white robes and is drying them (after cleaning).
Text:
持統天皇御せい
春すきて夏きにけらし白たへの
ころもほすてふあまのかく山
春過ぎて haru sugi-te
夏来にけらし natu ki ni kerasi
白栲の sirotahe no
衣干すてふ koromo hosu tefu
天の香具山 ama no kaguyama
Notes:
春過ぎて: Classical Japanese (as well as colloquial modern Japanese) does not require any particle between a subject and predicate, or object and predicate (as seen in lines 1, 2, and 4).
来にけらし: This parses as ki (連用形 of ku) + ni (連用形 of the suffix ぬ, indicating completion) + kerasi, a contraction of keri and rasi. keri is a somewhat complicated suffix; in poetry it almost always indicates that the speaker is just noticing something that is already true or has occurred (sometimes called the “surprise” keri). rasi is more or less the same as modern らしい in this case. The meaning of the whole line is something like “It seems that summer is already here.” In contrast to the first poem, which was one sentence, the end of the second line is the end of a sentence. This is sometimes known as 二句切（にくぎり）. The remaining three lines are a modifier (line 3 and 4) for a noun (line 5); ending a poem with a noun in this manner is known as 体言止め（たいげんどめ）. It's particularly associated with poetry of the 新古今集 era (see below).
白栲の: This is a word literally representing a white tree, but also referring to white clothes woven from the bark of the tree, or simply the color white. In this case, the whole phrase is something called a 枕詞（まくらことば）. These phrases, almost always 5 mora, are used to fill out the meter of a poem and always connect to specific words – if you're familiar with Homeric poetry, it's similar to the “stock epithets” found in The Iliad and The Odyssey. They are most associated with poetry from the 万葉集 era, particularly the longer poems. In some cases the exact meanings of the 枕詞 are unknown or disputed. In this case the phrase is a 枕詞 for 衣 in the next line, although it's also possible to simply read it as the literal “white clothes” meaning.
衣干す: Modern Japanese still uses 干す with clothing to refer to hanging them out to dry. The 衣 here may be some sort of sacred garment associated with religious ceremonies on the mountain (although see the commentary section below).
てふ: This is a shortening of といふ (と言ふ) and is usually read as ちょう when the poem is read out loud now. This essentially is the same as modern という used to describe something, and means that the mountain is known as a place where clothes are dried. It may indicate that this is a legend about the mountain.
天の香具山: 天 in this case means “holy” or “heavenly”. The mountain is one of the so-called 大和三山. It is in modern-day 橿原市（かきわらし） in Nara-ken. The Japanese wikipedia article has more information and a picture. Aside from this poem, it is famous in poetry for Man'yoshu poem 2, in which Emperor Jomei stands on it to view the kingdom.
Translation: It seems that spring has passed and summer has already come. Holy Kaguya mountain, where it is said they dry white clothing.
Author: Empress Jito (645-702), the 41st Emperor in the traditional order of succession, and the daughter of Tenji. Unlike the previous poem, this poem originally appears in the 万葉集 attributed to Jito, making this poem's authenticity much more likely.
Source: 新古今和歌集 (shin kokin wakashu), the 8th imperial anthology and the last of the so-called 八大集. It appears there with the 詞書 of 題知らず, as with the previous poem. The poem was taken originally from the 万葉集, where it appears as poem 28 in a slightly different form (line 2 is 来（きた）るらし and line 4 is 衣干したり, したり being equivalent to the modern している or してある).
Teika himself was one of the compilers of the 新古今集. It took a number of poems from old sources like the Man'yoshu (which was not an imperially commissioned collection), especially when the poetic techniques seemed to match those in vogue at the time. The reason for the different form of the poem could be due to alternate methods of reading the 万葉仮名, or it could be because the compilers did not get the poem directly from the Man'yoshu but instead one of the later sources that drew from it.
Commentary:
The 体言止 technique has the effect of making the connection between the first 2 and last 3 lines less obvious. It seems to be here that the last three lines give the reason why the poet now sees that summer has come.
However, the exact link between the clothes drying and summer is a subject of debate, and even the exact meaning of 衣干す is a common topic of discussion in older commentaries. The surface, literal meaning is one possibility – this may be related to a change of clothing due to the change of seasons. Either this represents literally people living on the mountain drying their clothes, or it may refer to a legend where gods came down to the mountain to dry their white clothing.
Other commentaries, though, propose several other symbolic readings of the poem. One suggestion is that the flowers of the trees on the mountain look like white clothing drying. Another is that the mountain is veiled in mist in the spring, and once the mist clears in the summer you can see the mountain clearly (明白), thus using the drying white clothes as a symbol for that. Or, the mist on the mountain may be the white clothes themselves – in summer, the mountain has taken off its white robes and is drying them (after cleaning).