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?
- Meaning
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A mountain that knows no season is Mount Fuji. What time does it think it is, that snow falls upon it in scattered white, like the dappled back of a fawn?
- Commentary
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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, in Suruga Province, he saw Mount Fuji and composed this poem.
In the narrative, the size of Mount Fuji is described as though some twenty Mount Hiei were piled one upon another, though in truth it is but four or five times as great.
The travelers eventually reached Musashi and Shimōsa Provinces, in what are now the four provinces of the Kantō region.
- Source
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Ise Monogatari
- Other
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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.
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On Mount Utsu
in Suruga—there, even in waking,
nor yet in dreams,
do I meet with her.
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If you truly bear the name,
come, let me ask you,
O capital bird:
does the one I think upon
still live, or not?
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On Miyoshino’s fields,
the trusting wild geese too,
all in earnest,
cry as they draw near
toward your side.