ただきよはにげの馬にぞ乗りてげる
上総しりがいかけてかいなし
上総しりがいかけてかいなし
- Roma-ji
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Tadakiyo wa nige no uma ni zo noritegeru
Kazusa shirigai kakete kai nashi - English Translation
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Tadakiyo rode
off on a horse of flight-brown—
no use, Kazusa,
in strapping on the crupper
when all the beast does is run
- Meaning
- Tadakiyo rode off on a horse of flight-brown. No use, Kazusa, in strapping on the crupper when all the beast does is run.
- Commentary
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Volume Five: The Gosechi Dances
This is the second lampoon naming Tadakiyo and the last of the four on the rout at the Fuji.
With these four set down, the chapter turns to the new capital. On the thirteenth of the eleventh month a palace was finished at Fukuhara and the emperor moved into it; but the new capital had no Daigokuden, no Seishodō, no Burakuin, so the great thanksgiving rite due in the year of an accession could not be held, and it was decided that only the ordinary harvest rite and the Gosechi dances would take place. Even that harvest rite was in the end performed at the Bureau of Rites in the old capital.
Nige puns on "flight" and on kage, a bay coat. Was the horse a bay, or a horse of flight?
Shirigai is the crupper, the strap passed around a horse's hindquarters to keep the saddle from sliding forward. It is a device for supporting forward movement; on a horse that only runs away it is of no use. Kainashi means "of no avail," and carries the sound of kai in the harness vocabulary as well.
The verse is assembled out of nothing but the names of horse tack, exactly as the earlier one was assembled out of the parts of a house. A warrior is described entirely in the language of armor and harness. Granting him not one word proper to a person is the common method of mockery in this group of lampoons.
After these four, Volume Five closes with the hurried return from Fukuhara and with Shigehira's burning of Nara. After the laughter of the post-station women and the wit of the lampoons comes the scene of seventeen hundred people burning to death on the upper floor of the Great Buddha Hall. The latter half of the volume drops straight from laughter into fire.
nige……puns on "flight" and kage, a bay horse.
noritegeru……has gone and mounted.
Kazusa……Tadakiyo, Governor of Kazusa.
shirigai……the crupper, strapped round a horse's hindquarters.
kainashi……of no avail.
Daijōe……the great thanksgiving rite of an emperor's accession year.
Niinamee……the rite at which the emperor offers the new grain.
Gosechi……the dances performed in connection with that rite.
Jingikan……the office in charge of court ritual.
- Author
- Sei Shōnagon
- Source
- Heike Monogatari
- Prev Poem
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Fujigawa ni yoroi wa sutetsu sumizome no
koromo Tadakiyo nochi no yo no tame - Next Poem
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Tsune ni mishi kimi ga miyuki o kyō toeba
kaeranu tabi to kiku zo kanashiki