秋風にこゑを帆にあげてくる舟は
天の門渡る雁にぞありける
天の門渡る雁にぞありける
- Roma-ji
-
Akikaze ni koe o ho ni agete kuru fune wa
ama no to wataru kari ni zo arikeru - English Translation
-
On the autumn wind,
with their voices raised like sails,
come the passing ships—
yet they are but the wild geese
crossing Heaven’s narrow strait.
- Meaning
- On the autumn wind, with their cries lifted like sails, what seems like a ship advancing is in fact wild geese crossing the strait of the heavens.
- Commentary
-
Book Four Autumn Poems (Part One)
This poem was paired in a poetry contest held in the imperial court during the Kanpyō era.
A line of wild geese flying through the autumn wind is likened to a ship moving across the sea. Their cries are compared to the raising of sails, with a play on “ho,” meaning both “sail” and “to stand out.”
“Amano-to” refers to a narrow strait, originally meaning a constricted part of the sea. It may be understood as the sky likened to the sea, or as a narrow part of the Milky Way.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Sugane
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- Through springtime haze the wild geese once passed away— yet now they cry, above the drifting autumn mist, their voices heard once more.
- In the chill of night, as if to borrow a robe— the wild geese cry out; and beneath the bush clover, the lower leaves have turned and fade.
- My troubled thoughts I string together one by one— like the wild geese’ cries, that pass across the autumn sky night after night in their flight.
- In mountain villages, autumn is the loneliest— again and again, awakened by the stag’s cry, I rise from uneasy sleep.