KKS 18

Text

み山には　松の雪だに　きえなくに　宮こはのべの　わかなつみけり

Translation

[Topic unknown] [Poet unknown]

On the mountain / even the snow on the pines / has not melted / but in the capital / they are picking young shoots (of the fields (4)).

Notes

In almost all texts, this poem and poem 19 are switched.

み山

The み can be simply honorific, but it's more likely here that it means "deep mountain".

松の雪だに

だに indicates "even." Various explanations have been offered for why the poet says that "even" the snow in the pines has not vanished -- clearly this means that the snow on pines is expected to vanish first, but is it simply that the needles are small and don't hold much snow? I think it may just be that pine trees are being used for the scenery the poet sees, and that he simply means the snow on the trees melts quicker than the snow on the ground.

Some commenters such as Template:Teika cited Chinese poetry that mentioned snow on pines.

きえなくに

なくに is a holdover from OJ; a combination of the なく nominal form of the negative ず, plus the conjunctive に. "Even though it hasn't..."

のべのわかな

Many alternate texts read のべにわかな, which means "they are picking young shoots in the fields."

Analysis

Fujiwara no Kinto, in the Template:Oldest, identified a potential poetic fault in this poem, in that the first and fourth lines begin with the same sounds (みや). He noted that this is not truly a fault because みやま and みやこ are different words. Later commenters noted this potential fault as well, although some of them disagreed that this wasn't a fault -- only that because of the antiquity of this poem the fault is excusable. Takeoka felt that this repetition of sounds was actually a strength of the poem, emphasizing the contrast between the two parts of the poem.

Fujiwara no Shunzei included this poem in his Template:Oldest selection.

The biggest interpretive question is who the poet is and where they are reading the poem.