郭公人まつ山になくなれば
我うちつけにこひまさりけり
我うちつけにこひまさりけり
- Roma-ji
-
Hototogisu hito matsuyama ni naku nareba
ware uchitsuke ni koimasarikeri - English Translation
-
The cuckoo cries
upon the mountain of wait—
for one it awaits;
and I, all at once, as well,
feel my longing deepen still.
- Meaning
- Because the cuckoo cries upon the mountain where one waits for another, I too suddenly feel my longing deepen.
- Commentary
-
Book III, Summer Poems
Composed upon hearing the cuckoo cry in the mountains.
Hearing the cuckoo’s voice, the poet finds a sudden longing for another arising within. Its cry, without clear cause, brings about a sense of quiet melancholy.
"Matsuyama" may be taken as a place name, though its exact identification is uncertain.
- Author
- Ki no Tsurayuki
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- In the rainy skies of the Fifth Month, resounding, the cuckoo cries on— what sorrow burdens its heart, that it calls so endlessly?
- No cuckoo’s voice is heard here at all, and yet the mountain echo— why does it not bring to me the cry from somewhere afar?
- Is it of old times that it still feels such longing, the cuckoo that cries— it comes to my former home and sings there, as once it did?
- Though it is not I, the cuckoo, among deutzia, cries as it flies on— as if through this weary world, it wanders in sorrow like me.