In a greenish hue,
Palatial Nara is now
Shining all around,
Emitting brilliant aura
Like full-blown flowers’ aroma!
(Vol.3-328)


“Aoniyoshi”, appearing on the top of the poem, is so-called “Pillow Word”, or “stock epithet”, functioning as a decorative prelude to the word directly following it, or even to the whole poem. Each epithet seems to have a certain relevance in the meaning and atmosphere to the recipient word, “Palatial Nara” in this case. You will come across such decorative epithets in other poems, and I will let you know there. They say Ancient Nara used to produce and utilize local greenish ochre (Aoni) for the tiles and structures.
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● BILOG“MAN-YOH-SHUH”topに戻る