Oto ni nomi ari to kikikoshi Miyoshino no taki wa kyō koso sode ni ochikere - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

音にのみありと聞きこしみ吉野の
滝は今日こそ袖に落ちけれ

Roma-ji: Oto ni nomi ari to kikikoshi Miyoshino no taki wa kyō koso sode ni ochikere
English Translation: Known by hearsay
only, heard of all these years,
fair Yoshino's
falls: today, at last, they come
crashing down upon my sleeve
Meaning: The falls of Yoshino, which until now I had known only by hearsay, have today at last come tumbling down upon my sleeve.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems I 991

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the second poem of the sequence on love known only from a distance. The falls of Yoshino, long known only by hearsay, have today at last fallen upon the speaker's sleeve, likening the flood of love's tears to a waterfall. The headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author, "Anonymous," continues from the preceding poem and indicates a poem whose author's name has not come down to us.

The first line, "oto ni nomi," means "only by hearsay." It opens in the same form as "yoso ni nomi" in the preceding poem, setting a love only heard of beside a love only seen.
In the second line, "kikikoshi" joins the verb "ku" (to come) with the past auxiliary "ki," meaning "have heard all along."
In the third line, "mi" is an honorific prefix. Yoshino is a famed poetic place in Yamato, sung for the rapids and falls of the Yoshino River, for its cherries and its snow.
In the fourth line, the emphatic particle "koso" is resolved by "kere" in the last line. Falls once known only by report now press upon the speaker on this very day.
The last line, "sode ni ochikere," uses the exaggeration of falls dropping onto a sleeve to show tears that will not stop, and "kere" marks the sudden realization. What was only heard of becomes tears falling on one's own body, a step beyond the merely distant love of the preceding poem.
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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