ちはやぶる神や切りけむつくからに
千歳の坂も越えぬべらなり
千歳の坂も越えぬべらなり
- Roma-ji
-
Chihayaburu kami ya kirikemu tsuku kara ni
chitose no saka mo koenu beranari - English Translation
-
by the mighty gods
was this staff perhaps cut forth—
as I take it up now
even the slope of a thousand years
seems one I may yet cross
- Meaning
- Was this staff perhaps cut by the mighty gods? As I take it up, it feels as though I may even cross the slope of a thousand years.
- Commentary
-
Book Seven Felicitations
A poem composed on behalf of his grandmother when Emperor Kōkō, then still a prince, saw a silver staff prepared for her eightieth celebration.
In ancient custom, as recorded in the Rites, a staff was presented at the age of eighty. The poem praises the staff as something wondrous, as if fashioned by the gods, and expresses the feeling that with it one may go on to live even longer, beyond the span of a thousand years.
- Author
- Sojo Henjo
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- let my span of years be added to your eight thousand— if it may be so then keep what thus remains as a memory of me
- thus as I am now in one way or another I live lingering on still— if only there were a way to meet your eight thousand years
- cherry blossoms scatter, whirl, and cloud the way— so that the path by which old age is said to come may lose itself and stray
- from Kame-no-o along the rooted mountain rocks falling, the cascade— its white jeweled drops, could they be the count of your thousand years