旅ねするいせの浜をぎつゆながらむすぶ枕にやどる月かげ
| tabinesuru ise no hamaogi tsuyu nagara musubu makura ni yadoru tsukikage | Sleeping on my travels, with Cogon grass from the shore at Ise, Dew covered, Woven for my pillow, Moonlight’s lodging.[i] |
568
[i] See: 神風之 伊勢乃浜荻 折伏 客宿也将為 荒浜辺尓 kamukaze no/ ise no hamaogi / orifusete / tabine ya suramu / araki hamabe ni ‘Divine winds blow / Cogon grass on the shore at Ise / I weave and lay me down— / Should I doze upon my travels? / On this wild beachside…’ (Man’yōshū IV: 500).
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’.
Love and tales.[i]
| wakarenishi mukashi wa tsuyu ka asajiwara ato naki nobe ni akikaze zo fuku | Since they were parted, Were those ancient times dewdrop brief? Across the cogon grass Upon the trackless plain The autumn wind is blowing! |
546
[i] The ‘tale’ here is the Song of Everlasting Woe about the doomed love between Yang Guifei and Emperor Xuanzong
On waiting for love through the years, when folk had composed poetry.[i]
故郷のあさぢが露にむすぼほれひとりなく虫の人をうらむる
| furusato no asaji ga tsuyu ni musubōre hitori naku mushi no hito o uramuru | At this ancient estate The cogon grass by dew Is held fast, as All alone a single insect cries, Hating that man… |
513
