480531170

later represented by changing determinative
from 179 (original meaning in Chinese was
‘run’, in contrast to its common meaning ‘walk,
go’ in modern Chinese: ‘run’ in Japanese) to .
QX2000:333; OT1968:920.
Mnemonic: WORDY OBITUARY FOR A DEATH
DIVINED
1910
赴
FU, omomuku
Seal . Has 179 ‘run’, with (‘perform divination’,
see 96/1598) as phonetic with associ-
proceed, go
L1
9 strokes
ated sense taken as i] ‘stick, adhere, get near to’,
giving ‘hastily go and reach/ arrive’ (Ogawa), or
FUNINproceed to new post ii] ‘announce’, giving ‘run and announce’, or –
FUNINCHInew post
according to Qiu – ‘run and announce somebody’s
FUEN go to rescue
death’. This latter meaning later came
to be represented by 1909, while came
to be used in general senses such as ‘proceed’.
Mizukami lists a proposed OBI equivalent.
OT1968:966; KJ1970:820; QX2000:333.
Mnemonic: DIVINATION PROMPTS ONE TO
PROCEED AT A RUN
1911
L2
浮
10
FU, uku/kabu/kaberu
float, fleeting,
buoyant, gay
strokes
FURYOKUbuoyancy
uwaki*inconstancy
ukiyofleeting world
OBI ; seal ; traditional . Consists of
42 ‘water’, combined with (interpretations
of the original meaning vary: see Note below)
as phonetic with associated sense taken as i]
‘float’ (Katō), or ii] ‘cover’ (Ogawa), or iii] ‘envelop’
(Tōdō). Despite these differences, the
resultant overall meaning is much the same:
namely ‘float on surface’ (Katō), ‘float (so as to
cover surface)’ (Ogawa), ‘envelop water surface’
(Tōdō). The idea of floating, particularly
in the Edo Period (1600-1868), is related to a
quasi-fatalistic sense of the brevity and transience
of life, hence the meaning ‘fleeting’. It is
also a commentary on socio-cultural values
regarding pleasure – live for the moment, as it
were – which included sexual relations, from
the male perspective not necessarily with his
wife but with the courtesans and geisha in the
notorious pleasure quarters. (Geisha, which
means ‘talented person’, were in fact all male
until the middle of the 18 th century.) Yoshiwara
in Edo (early name for Tokyo) was the
most noted of the pleasure quarters. Ukiyoe,
which translates as ‘pictures of the floating
world’, are sought after by collectors of art
work, for they depict scenes from the pleasure
quarters. When Westerners arrived from the
mid 19th century, many were shocked by the
explicitness of these pictures, which were in
the form of woodblock prints. Note: commentators
are agreed that the two constituent
elements of are 319/1739 ‘hand, claw’,
combined with 27 ‘child’, but differ in their
interpretation. Katō takes as ‘deliver newborn
baby’, while Gu says ‘suckle infant’, and Ogawa
interprets somewhat differently as ‘seize
child with hands’, i.e. ‘captive’. KJ1970:821-2;
OT1968:580,267; TA1965:233-5; GY2008:465.
Mnemonic: HAND PLUCKS FLOATING CHILD
FROM WATER
The Remaining 1130 Characters 571