峰たかき春日の山にいづる日は
くもる時なく照らすべらなり
くもる時なく照らすべらなり
- Roma-ji
-
Mine takaki Kasuga no yama ni izuru hi wa
kumoru toki naku terasu beranari - English Translation
-
From Kasuga's mount
high-peaked, the rising sun—
never veiled by clouds,
shall without a clouded hour
shine upon the world, it seems
- Meaning
- The sun that rises over lofty Mount Kasuga will surely shine upon the world without ever being clouded.
- Commentary
-
Book Seven: Poems of Celebration
A poem composed when the Crown Prince (Prince Yasuakira) was born and the poet came to offer congratulations.
The birth of the Crown Prince is likened to the sun rising over a mountain. "Mount Kasuga" is the mountain where the shrine dedicated to Ame-no-Koyane-no-Mikoto, the ancestral deity of the Fujiwara clan, stands, and the sun rising from there symbolizes the prince. "Without clouds" means without difficulties or obstacles, and "to shine upon" carries the meaning of ruling or governing.
As a poem celebrating the birth of a prince, it is difficult to imagine a more auspicious verse. Yet knowing that Prince Yasuakira died young in 923 at the age of twenty-one makes even this joyful poem feel somewhat poignant.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Yoruka
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- autumn has come now yet unchanged in hue remains Mount Tokiwa still— so the wind must borrow leaves of scarlet from distant hills
- When white snow falls thick and without cease, then in fair Yoshino's hills by the wind from down the slopes flowers are scattered away
- Though we part and go, if on Inaba's mountain peaks the pine trees grow, and I should hear that you still wait, I shall return even now
- The digger wasps cry, in the autumn bush clover fields, at dawn you depart; when shall I await the day the traveler returns?