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I was looking into the verb 憩う, and was surprised that all the examples I
could find use …に憩う rather than …で憩う. A quick google (に憩う か で憩う) search
yielded two types of answers for various forums:

  * A lot of answers stated that both usages have the same meaning, but that に has a literary tone to it. jij********さん, on yahoo, helpfully quoted the 明鏡 dictionary:

> ❹〔文語的な言い方で〕動作・作用が行われる場や手段などを表す。…で。…にて。
>
> ㋐ 動作・作用が行われる場を表す。  
>  例「駅前に待つ」

  * An isolated answer, from user 酔ってないですさん (!), also on yahoo, seems unconvincing to me, but who knows:

> 「に」は静的な意味を持ちます。
>
> ＜例＞ 渡り鳥が水辺に憩う。
>
> 「で」は動的な意味を持ちます。  
>  ＜例＞ 渡り鳥が水辺で憩う。

As a side-question, I'm curious whether the latter, isolated answer has any
backing to it. I wonder if they might be on to something.

But my focus is on the former set of answers : に as a literary で. Is there
really no semantical nuance between the literary 駅前に待つ and the usual 駅前で待つ? I
mean, it could be classified as "literary" because it expresses a subtle
difference deemed irrelevant in everyday discourse. If not, if it really is
merely a stylistic difference, is there a time at which that usage was
jettisoned from usual discourse, making it first "old school", then
inappropriate? But then, at what time of history, and "why"?

Also, 憩う is not flagged as a literary verb anywhere I could check. So I wonder
if something deeper is going on. Like に憩う being a remnant of former times, a
"set expression".

I realize that this question borders on the frowned-upon "discussion". But an
answer to it would deepen my understanding of the Japanese language.
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particle-に particle-で history
Is there a deep meaning to the fact that the に particle, in a literary context, can be used in place of で
Some history, mostly about Old Japanese:

Etymologically, **で** developed as onbin form of **にて** during Early Middle
Japanese period. **にて** can still be found in formal, literary or archaic
contexts in modern language.

In Old Japanese and Middle Japanese, voiced plosives and fricatives were
prenasalized, so _b_ , _d_ , _z_ and _g_ were actually /mb/, /nd/, /nz/ and
/ŋg/. So phonological development of で was: /nite/ → /nde/ → /de/.

_**nite**_ was originally the _-te_ form of defective verb _**n-**_ "to be":

Attributive (called Adnominal by Frellesvig 2010): _**nə**_ (→ modern _**no**_
)

Continuative (called Infinitive by Frellesvig 2010, called Converb by Vovin
2020): _**ni**_

Gerund (called Subordinative Converb by Vovin 2020): _**nite**_

Vovin (2020, pages 474-475) about Subordinative Converb _nite_ :

> 2.4.1.3 Subordinative Converb Form _n-i-te_
>
> The subordinative converb form _n-i-te_ is a rare form in Western Old
> Japanese. It is attested only in the _Man'yōshū_ , where it occurs five
> times. _N-i-te_ has only two functions: (1) copula in a nominal predicate,
> (2) marker of a location of an action or a state.
>
> ...
>
> The subordinative converb _n-i-te_ is attested only in Classical Ryukyuan
> (in _Ryūka_ ) (Hokama 1995: 508), and does not reveal itself in either Old
> Ryukyuan or modern dialects. Thus, it is certainly a loan from Classical
> Japanese. The absence of the _n-i-te_ form in both Eastern Old Japanese and
> Ryukyuan suggests that this form is a result of an internal development in
> Central Japanese.

Frellesvig considers that usage of _nə_ and _ni_ as case particles etc.
developed from forms of aforementioned copula _n-_. However Vovin (2020) did
not speculate it.

Vovin (2020, pages 145-158) about Dative-Locative Case Marker _-ni_ :

> 1.2.2.4 Dative-Locative Case Marker _-ni_ :
>
> The case marker _ni_ has the following functions in the language of
> Classical Japanese prose: (1) dative case marker, (2) locative case marker,
> (3) agent marker in passive constructions, (4) directive case marker. It
> also has a special conjunctional usage connecting two clauses, and indicates
> either a reason or concession. In this last case, the case marker _-ni_
> follows the attributive form of a verb.
>
> 1.2.2.4.1 Dative Case Marker
>
> In this function _-ni_ is used after animate nouns only.
>
> ...
>
> 1.2.2.4.2 Locative Case Marker
>
> As a locative case marker, _-ni_ has both spatial and temporal meanings.
>
> ...
>
> 1.2.2.4.5 Agent Marker in Passive Constructions
>
> In this function, as the following examples show, _-ni_ marks animate nouns
> as agents in a passive construction. In Classical Japanese, both animate and
> inanimate nouns could be used as agents in passive construction (Vovin 2003:
> 326), but in Old Japanese inanimate nouns do not appear in this function
> yet. This may be due to the scarcity of Old Japanese texts in comparison to
> Classical Japanese texts, but overall this is unlikely: it appears that the
> passive construction is relatively new in Old Japanese, as only two examples
> are attested in the texts.
>
> ...
>
> There is one example in Old Japanese when the case marker _-ni_ marks an
> agent in the sentence that includes the verb _sayar-_ ‘be prevented,’ which
> is not marked by a passive morpheme, but has an inherent passive meaning
>
> ...
>
> 1.2.2.4.6 Directive Case Marker
>
> As a directive case marker, _-ni_ indicates the direction of movement, as in
> modern Japanese.
>
> ...
>
> As a subvariety of this function, _ni_ is used after the nominalized form of
> a verb and before a following verb that expresses the goal of a movement.
> Most often the verb following _ni_ is a verb of movement, but not always, as
> the following example from KK 1 shows. In Classical Japanese and later
> periods the following verb is always the verb of movement.
>
> ...
>
> 1.2.2.4.7 Special Usage
>
> The case marker _-ni_ occurs frequently after the attributive form of verbs.
> In this function, _-ni_ serves as a conjunction between two clauses, often
> with the meaning ‘and,’ ‘because,’ ‘since,’ ‘as’ or ‘when,’ and, more
> rarely, ‘but’ or ‘although.’ It is reasonable to believe that we are dealing
> here with a case marker _ni_ rather than with the converb form _n-i_ of the
> defective verb _n-_ ‘be.’ The reason for this belief is mainly typological:
> in other ‘Altaic’ languages that are similar to Japanese structurally, the
> dative-locative case marker has exactly the same function when used after
> attributive forms of verbs.
>
> ...
>
> There is no reliable external etymology for _-ni_. If Whitman is right in
> his assumption that all cases of OJ /ni/ are indeed otsu-rui *nï (Whitman
> 1985: 36–38), it is possible to speculate that OJ _-ni_ < *-nəy, and that it
> is connected etymologically with Eastern Old Japanese locative _-na_ (see
> section 1.2.2.6), which was already moribund in the eighth century.

Vovin (2020, pages 459-468) about Converb _n-i_ :

> 2.4.1.1 Converb Form _n-i_
>
> The converb form _n-i_ ‘being’ is used in a variety of functions. It may
> occur after both nominals and verbs, the latter normally being in their
> nominalized or attributive forms.
>
> (1) The converb _n-i_ can be used as a copula in a nominal predicate
>
> ...
>
> (2) The converb _n-i_ is frequently used after nouns and adjectives for
> adverbializations
>
> ...
>
> (3) Another usage of _n-i_ is after the quasi-postpositions _tamɛ_ ‘for,’
> and _yuwe_ ‘because,’ ‘for the sake of’ (lit. ‘reason,’ ‘cause,’ ‘sake’),
> which are historically bound nouns. Only the construction _yuwe n-i_ is
> attested with relatively high frequency (50 cases in the _Man'yōshū_ ), and
> is found in both Early and Late Western Old Japanese. The construction _tamɛ
> n-i_ is very rare (only 8 cases in the whole _Man'yōshū_ ), and it is
> attested reliably only in Late Western Old Japanese.
>
> ...
>
> (4) The converb _n-i_ can be also followed by the verbs _nar-_ ‘to become,’
> _se-_ ‘to do,’ and the adjective _posi_ ‘be desirable. ...
>
> ...
>
> The converb form _n-i_ is attested in Eastern Old Japanese in the same
> functions as in Western Old Japanese with the exception of the constructions
> _yuwe n-i_ and _tamɛ n-i_.
>
> The converb _n-i_ of the defective verb _n-_ ‘to be’ is attested in Old
> Ryukyuan as well as in modern dialects, including Southern Ryukyuan.

Extended copula forms were in Old Japanese: _ni ar-_ (formed from copula form
_ni_ and verb _ar-_ "to exist"), and contracted _nar-_ (← _ni ar-_ ). Non-
contracted forms were used more frequently than contracted forms in Old
Japanese. (Sources disagree about situation in Middle Japanese, but I can
guess that usage of non-contracted _ni ar-_ was decreasing in favor of
contracted _nar-_.)

Frellesvig (2010, page 235) in chapter about Early Middle Japanese:

> _Ni ar-_ had the variant _nite ar-_ , with _ar-_ following the gerund
> instead of the infinitive. In the course of EMJ _nite ar-_ became _de ar-_ ,
> which is the source of the cNJ copula _da_ (cf. 12.2.2, 15.2, 16.2).
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answer
駅前で待つ and 駅前に待つ mean exactly the same thing as far as the meaning goes, but
the latter sounds to me like this is a message from 150 years ago or the title
of a period drama. It's almost classical Japanese, and never appears in
ordinary speech, but it may occasionally appear as an archaistic sentence
(like [this](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/99458/5010) and
[this](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/52662/5010)). Two other examples
of this type of に, listed by 明鏡国語辞典, are ベニスに死す and 母校に会す. Note that they use
rare literary verbs. 憩う is not as literary or stilted as 死す/会す, but it's still
a fancy/pompous word rarely used in informal speech.

According to [this presentation
(PDF)](http://www.kyorin-u.ac.jp/univ/user/foreign/nikodebu/lectures\(PDF\)/2-1.pdf)
and [this entry](https://kobun.weblio.jp/content/%E3%81%A7), the particle で
was derived from に(あり)て during the Heian period (794-1185). Saying Xにありて待つ
("to wait while being at X") was too long, so it contracted to Xにて待つ, and then
to Xで待つ. This may explain why Xに待つ, Xに憩う, Xに死す and so on sound archaic, but
native speakers intuitively sense the antiquity of this type of に knowing
nothing about its history.
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