Makurakotoba (枕詞, lit. 'pillow words') are figures of speech used in Japanese waka 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 honkadori).

Many have lost their original meaning but are still used. They are not to be confused with utamakura ("poem pillow"), which are a category of poetic words used to add greater mystery and depth to poems. Makurakotoba are present in the Kojiki, one of Japan's earliest chronicles.^[1]

History and usage

Makurakotoba are most familiar to modern readers in the Man'yōshū, and when they are included in later poetry, it is to make allusions to poems in the Man'yōshū. The exact origin of makurakotoba remains contested to this day, though both the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, two of Japan's earliest chronicles, utilise it as a literary technique.^[2]

In terms of usage, makurakotoba are often used at the beginning of a poem. The jokotoba is a similar figure of speech used in Man'yōshū poetry, used to introduce a poem. In fact, the 17th-century Buddhist priest and scholar Keichū wrote that "if one says jokotoba, one speaks of long makurakotoba" in his Man'yō-taishōki. Japanese scholar Shinobu Orikuchi also echoes this statement, claiming that makurakotoba are jokotoba that have been compressed.^[3]

While some makurakotoba still have meanings that add to the meaning of the following word, many others have lost their meanings. As makurakotoba 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 waka poems face difficulty when translating makurakotoba, 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 waka.^[4] It is said^{[weasel words]} that Sei Shōnagon often used this technique in The Pillow Book, and some earlier scholars^[who?] 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.^{[citation needed]}

Examples

There are many instances of makurakotoba found in the Man'yōshū.^[5] The very first poem demonstrates how this was used:

In this poem, sora mitsu (literally "sky-seen" or "sky-spreading") modifies the place name Yamato.

Some historical makurakotoba have developed into the usual words for their meaning in modern Japanese, replacing the terms they originally alluded to. For example, niwa tsu tori (庭つ鳥, bird of the garden) was in classical Japanese a makurakotoba for kake (鶏, chicken). In modern Japanese, niwatori has displaced the latter word outright and become the everyday word for "chicken" (dropping the case marker tsu along the way).

Some more makurakotoba are listed below:^[7]