Crossing Mount Otowa
this very morning,
the cuckoo now cries,
from treetops far away,
its voice drifting to me.
- Meaning
-
Crossing Mount Otowa this very morning, I hear the cuckoo now crying from far-off treetops.
- Commentary
-
Book III, Summer Poems
Composed upon crossing Mount Otowa and hearing the cuckoo’s call.
The poem expresses the poet’s emotion as he listens to the voice of the cuckoo calling from distant treetops along the mountain path.
Mount Otowa lies just south of the Ōsaka Barrier, on the border between Yamashiro Province and Ōmi Province.
- Author
-
Ki no Tomonori
- Source
-
Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
-
Before I knew it,
has the Fifth Month come?
from the mountain depths,
the cuckoo at last now
has begun to cry aloud.
-
This very morning,
having just begun to cry,
still on its journey,
o cuckoo, pray take rest
in my blooming orange tree.
-
When first I hear it,
the cuckoo’s earliest cry,
helplessly I feel,
a longing for someone—
though no one is yet mine.
-
In Isonokami,
the ancient capital’s call
of the cuckoo—
its voice alone remains
just as it was long ago.