Fragrance on sleeves

#waka #orangeblossom #tachibana

There is an "anonymous" poem in the KoKinshu KKS III 139 about orange blossom.

Satsuki natsu 

hanatachibana no

ka (w)o kageba

mukashi no hito no

sode no ka zo suru

Fifth lunar month summer

flower(ing) orange of 

fragrance (or possibly this) scent verb causal 

past / long ago / of people / person of

sleeve(s) of scent note that suru can mean does make or leave trace 

In the fifth month summer orangeblossom the / this scent of  causes me ( to think of ) from the past people 

because of traces of scent on sleeves.

A note since Heian aristocrats did not to my knowledge use a orange blossom scented perfume or incense the scent of the sleeves may be a sachet placed with clothing in storage.

Its summer perhaps some low ranking courtier has been tasked with taking clothing out of storage.

The screen doors are open. The scent of orange blossom is wafting indoors from trees outside and inside this is reinforced by the traces of scent on sleeves.

Scent and memory.  

Tachibana "Orange"

Tachibana Orange

#tachibana #citrus #orange #kitsu #mandarin

Modern #Chinese uses this #hanzi to describe Tangerines and Oranges and Mandarins and probably just small oranges in earlier time? 

In #Japanese though the #kanji is Tachibana a subspecies of Citrus.

However in Vietnam if I can trust my dictionaries the archaic form *gwuit developed a semantic split with one word used to describe the citrus fruit we call kumquats and the other pronunciation for mandarin oranges.

Part of the reason are this is the quest for a small edible sweet orange. 

Citrus growers in China and Japan hybridised varieties to create the range of fruits we have today.

Apparently the native Tachibana "mandarin" / orange was grown for its peel and flowers with the peel and rind used for medicines and the flowers for their scent. 

I will be sharing some poems about the scent of orange blossom in the next posts. 

Summer Heat

Two characters for Summer and Summer Heat

Xia Summer

XIA SUMMER

#xia #summer #hanzi #kanji, #inkscape, #unihan, #technozi,

This is two objects overlapping one a lower layer and slightly larger and the top with filters added.