から衣きつつなれにしつましあれば
はるばるきぬるたびをしぞ思ふ
はるばるきぬるたびをしぞ思ふ
- Roma-ji
-
Karagoromo kitsutsu narenishi tsuma shi areba
harubaru kinuru tabi o shi zo omou - English Translation
-
Clad in Chinese robes,
long worn and grown familiar—
because I have a wife
so dear and close to me,
how keenly I feel this distant journey.
- Meaning
- Like a Chinese robe worn again and again until it has grown familiar to the body, I have a wife with whom I have grown close; and so I keenly feel the long journey that has brought me far from the capital.
- Commentary
-
Episode Nine: "Chinese robes"
One tale of the "Journey to the East."
A man, thinking himself of no use in this world, left the capital to seek a place to dwell in the Eastern Provinces, setting out with one or two companions.
On the way, at Yatsuhashi in Mikawa Province, as they ate their meal and saw irises blooming by the marsh, one of them proposed that they compose a poem beginning each line with the five syllables of "kakitsubata." Thus, placing the given characters at the head of each line, he composed this acrostic poem.
- Source
- Ise Monogatari
- Other
-
- All the more, as I go farther on, how I long for the place I have left— how enviable are the waves that return again.
- From Mount Asama in Shinano, rising smoke— do people far and near not see it and take alarm?
- On Mount Utsu in Suruga—there, even in waking, nor yet in dreams, do I meet with her.
- A mountain that knows no season— Mount Fuji’s peak: what time does it think it is, that like a fawn’s dappled back snow falls in scattered white?