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.
- Meaning
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As I string together my sorrowful thoughts one by one, the cries of wild geese pass across the sky, night after night.
- Commentary
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Book Four Autumn Poems (Part One)
“Tsuranete” carries a double meaning: to string thoughts together, and for the geese to fly in a line. “Night after night” emphasizes the continued succession of sorrow.
It is not the geese but the poet who strings together these thoughts, perhaps seeing their own reflection in the geese that pass overhead, crying as they go.
- Author
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Oshikochi no Mitsune
- Source
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Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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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.
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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.
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In mountain villages,
autumn is the loneliest—
again and again,
awakened by the stag’s cry,
I rise from uneasy sleep.
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In the deep mountains,
treading through the fallen leaves,
the stag cries aloud—
when I hear that lonely voice,
then autumn is most sorrowful.