Kissing Sweetfish (935)
Ki no Tsurayuki
From the Tosa Journal, “New Years Day”. See also On Kissing in Fireflies Sing, and Mister Bean's translation into Modern Japanese, with analysis.
Transliteration
Tada, oshiayu no kuchi wo nomi zo sufu. Kono sufu hitobito no kuchi wo, oshiayu moshi, omofu yau ara n ya.
English
Simply, they only kissed the lips of pressed salted sweetfish. Suppose that the sweetfish helplessly had longing for the lips of these kissing people?
Notes
ぞ: Bound particle emphasizing the object (i.e., the lips).
すふ: Literally “sucked”.
もし／や: The combination of a rhetorical question and moshi's “if by chance” or “supposing that” is hard to translate literally.
やう: literally means “appearance” but here used as a nominalizer.
ん: nasalized form of particle ru, expressing spontaneity.
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