風吹けば沖つ白浪たつた山
夜半にや君がひとりこゆらむ
夜半にや君がひとりこゆらむ
- Roma-ji
-
Kaze fukeba oki tsu shiranami Tatsutayama
yowa ni ya kimi ga hitori koyuramu - English Translation
-
When the wind blows,
white waves rise offshore—
so on Tatsuta Mountain,
in the midnight hours,
are you crossing it alone?
- Meaning
- When the wind blows and white waves rise offshore, so fearful is Tatsuta Mountain; are you crossing it alone in the middle of the night?
- Commentary
-
Episode Twenty-Three: "By the well-curb"
The children who had once played together by the shared well at last married when they came of age.
But after the wife’s parents died and their life grew poor, the man, weary of such wretched living, took up with another woman in Takayasu of Kawachi and began to visit her.
Though he had taken a new woman, the wife did not reproach him and saw him off without complaint.
This poem was composed by the wife when the man, suspecting that she might have turned her heart toward another, hid in the bushes to watch her.
Unaware of his suspicion, she spoke this poem in concern for him.
Tatsuta Mountain lies in present-day Nara and forms the road from Yamato to Kawachi.
The "white waves" also carry the meaning of bandits, and since ancient times Tatsuta Mountain was said to be a dangerous place where robbers appeared.
- Source
- Ise Monogatari
- Other
-
- By the well-curb of the round well we once stood— my childish height has surely grown beyond it while I have not seen you.
- The parted hair we once compared in length has passed my shoulders— if not you, then who shall raise it up for me?
- Toward where you are I shall sit and gaze— O Mount Ikoma, let not the clouds conceal you, though even if rain should fall.
- Each night you said that you would surely come has passed in vain; though I no longer rely on it, still do I live on longing.