La prière de l’amour Traduire les deux sens de kohu, « prier » et « aimer », dans un poème du Man'yôshû

The starting point of the article is the word yûtatami, a piece of folded fabric given as a divine offering. In poetry, this word is a “pillow word,” used most often with Tamuke-yama. Tamuke-yama indicates a division between the ­cultivated and non-­cultivated world, and yûtatami is a mediation between sacred and profane domains. The link between spirituality and love in ­Man’yôshû is one of the challenges of translation.