Tag Archives: Meeting Hill

Love II: 27

Left (Win).

変れただ別るる道の野辺の露命に向ふ物も思はじ

kaware tada
wakaruru michi no
nobe no tsuyu
inochi ni mukau
mono mo omowaji
O, change
Upon our parting! The path
Through the dew dropped fields –
How like life:
I would not think such thoughts!

Lord Sada’ie 

713

Right.

別れ路のありける物を逢坂の關を何しに急ぎ越えけん

wakareji no
arikeru mono o
ōsaka no
seki o nani shi ni
isogikoeken
The path after parting
Is such a thing, so
Why to Meeting Hill’s
Barrier Gate do we
Rush to pass in haste?

Lord Tsune’ie

714

The Gentlemen of the Right state: the diction in the Left’s poem fails to link. The Gentlemen of the Left state: what novelty there is in the Right’s poem!

Shunzei’s judgement: in the Left’s poem it does not appear to me that the diction of the initial section links poorly. ‘How like life’ (inochi ni mukau) does, indeed, appear in the Man’yōshū and other works, but it does not seem that desirable. As for the Right, while it seems that the appearance of Meeting Hill is well understood, saying ‘why to the barrier gate’ (seki o nani shi ni) is inferior to ‘how like life’.

KYS VI: 349

When he went down to Michinoku Province, he sent this back to the capital from the barrier at Meeting Hill.

われひとり急ぐと思ひし東路に垣根の梅はさきだちにけり

ware Fitori
isogu to omoFisi
adumadi ni
kakine no mume Fa
sakidatinikeri
I, alone,
Was hurried, or so I thought,
Upon this eastland road;
The plum trees by the fence
Have bloomed already.

Tachibana no Norimitsu

GSIS XVI: 939

Once Sei Shônagon was chatting to Major Councillor [Fujiwara no] Yukinari when, saying the palace was sealed because of a taboo, he made as if to leave hurriedly the following morning; she said he had been urged to leave by the cocks’ crowing, so he replied, ‘Cocks only crow in the middle of the night at Hangu Pass, don’t they?’ and got up and left; she composed this to say they were at Meeting Hill Barrier.

夜をこめて鳥の空音ははかるともよに逢坂の關はゆるさじ

yo wo komete
tori no sora ne Fa
Fakaru tomo
yo ni aFusaka no
seki Fa yurusazi
In the depths of night
Cocks’ crows
Cause confusion, yet
In the dark on Meeting Hill
The barrier won’t let you through!

Sei Shōnagon
清少納言