Sosho Translation Confirmation Assistance

[Tanto54]

I need some assistance confirming a sosho translation on a tsuba for a friend please!  I read this as Osoraku - "おそらく" (but in sosho - see picture below).  Like the famous osoraku-zukuri tanto by Shimada Sukemune from the 1400s, I believe that the interpretation means something like "nothing can compare” or “this is the only one like this that you will ever find."  I understand that the origin of the word Osoraku was "something to fear," and then evolved to "something unusual," and today means "perhaps."

 

Others have read it as "を我ら強く" (and interpreted it as "we shall overcome").

 

Any assistance or confirmation would be greatly appreciated (the friend asked that I not publish the entire tsuba for now).

 

 

[SteveM]

を as the beginning particle doesn't make sense. This should be part of a longer text. 

"Osoraku" would be 恐らく　(various theories, but all variations on the kanji 恐)

 

を我々強く　would be my guess, but still missing the first part, the "what" of the thing that makes us strong. 

[Tanto54]

Dear Steve, thanks for the reply.

 

I understand that in hentai-gana (older kana used by the literate of old times) 変体仮名　[へんたいがな] (anomalous cursive syllabary, non-standard kana) that they would have often used the "O" kanji for sound and not meaning (i.e., not a particle).

 

See:  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hentaigana

 

The subject of the tsuba is Shishibotan, and the only other thing written on the tsuba (on the other side of the nakagoanna) is the artist's name (Somin).  I believe that the second and third characters are (in standard modern kanji): 楚&羅

 

What do you think?

[k morita]

Hi Tanto 54,

 

Yes, the Sosho says "osoraku".　

[SteveM]

Whew - thank God Morita-san showed up. I was just about to write a paragraph about why it couldn't possibly be osoraku.

 

A few minutes later and I would have made a complete fool of myself. 

[Bazza]

OK, so we have [42], but what does it mean???

 

BaZZa.

[Bugyotsuji]

おそらく造（おそらくづくり）

短刀にみられる造り込みの一名称。横手筋が刀身の中程にあり、刀身の半分以上が切先とされた、反りの深い異様な造り込み。武田信玄が所持した島田助宗作の短刀にはじめてみられる。刀身に『おそらく』の文字が刻まれているところからの命名であるが、その言葉の意味は各説あり定かではない。

According to this despite many theories, no-one is quite sure what it means.

[Bugyotsuji]

According to this site, the kanji 恐 has at least five meanings in the original Chinese, and over the years all of these meanings were somehow kept in Japanese usage.

 

https://www.google.co.jp/amp/s/okwave.jp/amp/qa/q902235.html

 

My own first impression is that it may mean 念の為 "Nen no tame", or "just in case" (inferring a future negative, possibly terrible circumstance).

[Tanto54]

Thank you everyone!  The confirmation, additional sites and time you all spent is really appreciated.  In the context of this tsuba (really magnificent - I wish it were mine....), I'm leaning toward interpreting this as a soft way of saying "nothing can compare" or "this is my best work."

[Bugyotsuji]

Showed this to a Tsuba collector and he said the meaning or reference would be impossible to judge without context, ie a view of the tsuba.

 

In that single sliver shot above, however, he felt that the word Osoraku is written on the seppa-dai, in which case it is more likely to be the Go art name of the tsuba artisan.