Topic unknown.
おとにきくよしののさくら見にゆかむつげよやまもりはなのさかりは
| oto ni kiku yoshino no sakura mi ni yukamu tsugeyo yamamori hana no sakari wa | By repute I’ve heard of Yoshino’s cherries, so Them I’ll go and see! Tell me, Mountain warden, Of the blossoms’ profusion! |
Hitomaro[1]
[1] This poem is also Hitomaro-shū 260 and Shokusenzaishū I: 71.
Composed on seeing an aged pine on the rocky shore while on the road to a place called Misaki.[i]
いその松いくひささにか成りぬらんいたく木高き風のおとかな
| iso no matsu ikuhisasa ni ka narinuran itaku kodakaki kaze no oto kana | The pine tree on the rocky shore Has for how many eternities Endured? The tree, so very high, as is The sound of the wind! |
695
[i] Misaki 三崎 lies on the Miura Peninsula 三浦半島 on the far eastern side of Sagami Bay. Sanetomo is known to have visited Misaki in the Third Month, Kenryaku 2 [April 1212] and this poem was probably composed then.
Original
おとにのみききわたりつるあきのよのながさをひとりねてぞしりぬる
| oto ni nomi kikiwataritsuru aki no yo no nagasa o hitori nete zo shirinuru | By word alone Had I heard of Autumn nights’ Length, but alone and Sleeping did I understand it! |
42
Left (Win)
あきのよのながきにそへてねざめつつつきせぬものをおもふころかな
| aki no yo no nagaki ni soete nezametsutsu tsukisenu mono o omou koro kana | To an autumn night’s Length, add Being awake, then Inexhaustible is the gloom Filling your thoughts! |
43
Right
ひとりねであかぬときにもあきのよのながきこころをしらぬものかは
| hitori nede akanu toki ni mo aki no yo no nagaki kokoro o shiranu mono ka wa | Sleepless alone When unsatisfied, too, An autumn night’s Length, the heart Knows well, doesn’t it! |
44
There is a river called the Sagami River. I composed this to say I would board a boat and cross it after the moon had risen.[i]
ゆふづくよさすや川せのみなれ棹なれてもうとき浪のおとかな
| yūzukuyo sasu ya kawase no minarezao narete mo utoki nami no oto kana | On a moonlit night, The beams strike the river rapids— The well-worn pole to the water May be accustomed, yet troublesome is The sound of waves![ii] |
591
[i] This river would have been familiar to Sanetomo, as it flows into the sea some twenty kilometres to the west of Kamakura, where the shogunate was headquartered. Based on the poem, the boat would have been a ferry, punted, rather than sailed across it.
[ii] See: Topic unknown. ゆふづく夜さすやをかべの松のはのいつともわかぬこひもするかな yūzukuyo / sasu ya okabe no / matsu no ha no / itsu to mo wakanu / koi mo suru kana ‘On a moonlit night / The beams strike the hillside / Through the pine needles / All year round, / As constant is my longing.’ Anonymous (Kokinshū XI: 490)
Round Sixteen
Left
荻のはは暮行く風に音すなり我がまつ人のかからましかば
| ogi no ha wa kureyuku kaze ni otosu nari wa ga matsu hito no kakaramashikaba | The cogon grass fronds With the falling twilight breezes Sound out, though Were it the man I’m waiting for It would be better… |
Major Controller of the Left Tametaka
31
Right
逢ふことはかた野にしげる荻の葉の音をばたつな秋ははつとも
| au koto wa katano ni shigeru ogi no ha no oto oba tatsu na aki wa hatsu tomo | Our meeting, so hard: On the hillside thickly growing, O, cogon grass fronds Do not make a sound! For with autumn’s end I have had enough, yet.. |
Horikawa, Court Lady to Her Highness
32
I feel that the emotions encompassed by the sound of the wind in ‘Were it the man I’m waiting for / It would be better’ sounded more striking than ‘On the hillside thickly growing, / O, cogon grass fronds’.
Cogon grass and the Same
Round Fifteen
Left
うき人を驚かすべき方ぞなきうらやましきは荻の上風
| ukibito o odorokasubeki kata zo naki urayamashiki wa ogi no uwakaze | That cruel girl: To make her notice me I have no way at all! How I envy The wind blowing o’er the cogon grass! |
Lecturer Kakuga
29
Right
荻原やよかぜぞつらき音せずはねてこそ人を夢にみましか
| ogiwara ya yokaze zo tsuraki oto sezu wa nete koso hito o yume ni mimashika | O, plain of cogon grass, How unkind is the wind tonight! For without your sound, then Indeed, I would sleep that she I would glimpse within my dreams… |
The Head
30
The conception of love sounds superior at present in envying the ‘wind blowing o’er the cogon grass’ than it does in the ‘unkind is the wind tonight’.
When the Ise Virgin Junior Consort had yet to leave, he attached this to some cherry blossom and sent it to her.
吹く風の音にききつつさくら花めには見えずも過ぐる春かな
| fuku kaze no oto ni kikitsutsu sakurabana me ni wa miezu mo suguru haru kana | In the gusting wind’s Whispers will I ever hear My cherry blossom, though My eyes behold her not As spring passes by… |
Composed by the Tenryaku Emperor
