are figures of speech used in Japanese poetry in association with certain words. The set phrase can be thought of as a "pillow" for the noun or verb it describes, although the actual etymology is not fully known. It can also describe associations and allusions to older poems (see).
Many have lost their original meaning but are still used. They are not to be confused with ("poem pillow"), which are a category of poetic words used to add greater mystery and depth to poems. are present in the, one of Japan's earliest chronicles.[1]
are most familiar to modern readers in the, and when they are included in later poetry, it is to make allusions to poems in the . The exact origin of remains contested to this day, though both the and the, two of Japan's earliest chronicles, use it as a literary technique.[2]
In terms of usage, are often used at the beginning of a poem. The is a similar figure of speech used in poetry, used to introduce a poem. In fact, the 17th-century Buddhist priest and scholar Keichū wrote that "if one says, one speaks of long " in his . Japanese scholar Shinobu Orikuchi also echoes this statement, claiming that are that have been compressed.[3]
While some still have meanings that add to the meaning of the following word, many others have lost their meanings. As became standardized and used as a way to follow Japanese poetic traditions, many were used only as decorative phrases in poems and not for their meanings. Many translators of poems face difficulty when translating, because although they make up the first line, many have no substantial meaning, and it is impossible to discard the whole first line of a .[4] It is said that Sei Shōnagon often used this technique in The Pillow Book, and some earlier scholars thought that they were named after the book, but most agree now that the practice was fairly common at the time she wrote the Pillow Book.
There are many instances of found in the .[5] The very first poem demonstrates how this was used:
In this poem, (literally "sky-seen" or "sky-spreading") modifies the place name Yamato.
Some historical have developed into the usual words for their meaning in modern Japanese, replacing the terms they originally alluded to. For example, was in classical Japanese a for . In modern Japanese, has displaced the latter word outright and become the everyday word for "chicken" (dropping the case marker along the way).
Some more are listed below:[6]
| Meaning | Modifies | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| "good blue-black clay" | place name | ||
| "shining madder red" | ,, | ||
| "autumn mountain" | , | ||
| "scattered reeds" | place name | ||
| "good hemp" | place name | ||
| uncertain, possibly "foot-dragging" | , words beginning with, etc. | ||
| "birchwood bow", erroneously "catalpa bow" | ,,, etc. | ||
| "whale hunting" | ,,, etc. | ||
| "ivy-colored rocks" | |||
| "rock-running" | , place name, etc. | ||
| "fluttering, streaming" | , place name | ||
| "rush toward" | place name | ||
| "divine wind" | place name, | ||
| "grass pillow" | ,, | ||
| "twittered words" | , | ||
| "Korean sword" | place name | ||
| "hidden land" | place name | ||
| uncertain, possibly "sky-seen" or "sky-spreading" | place name | ||
| "good jeweled seaweed" | place name | ||
| "hemp rope" | , | ||
| "jeweled clothes" | |||
| "soul ending" | , | ||
| "jeweled cord" | place name,, | ||
| "powerful, mighty", erroneously "thousand-rock smashing" | place name,, etc. | ||
| "seasonal/timely wind" | place name | ||
| "lamplight" | place name | ||
| "bird-calling" | |||
| "spouse-hiding" | , | ||
| "spring mist/haze" | place name, | ||
| "source of the sun" | place name | ||
| "marsh(-black) snail guts" | |||
| "many-stoned" |