I look back and see
my old home a burnt-out field,
and what lies ahead
is a road across the waves,
as without form as the smoke
- Meaning
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Looking back, I see my old home a burnt-out field; and ahead lies a road over the waves, as formless as that smoke.
- Commentary
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Volume Seven: The Flight of the House
After Norimori's poem, Tsunemori composed this. With these two the scene of the flight from the capital closes.
Sadayoshi, Governor of Higo, hearing that the Minamoto had reached the mouth of the Yodo, had ridden out with five hundred horse; finding it false, he met the retreating column at Udono on his way back. He urged Munemori that in the west they would be hunted down as fugitives here and there, and that it would be better to stay in the capital. Munemori would not hear it, and Sadayoshi was given leave and returned to the city.
Yakeno no hara is a field burnt bare. Looking back, his home is burning.
The pivot is sue mo, "and what comes after also." Behind him is smoke; ahead is a sea road no less like smoke. Past and future are both blocked by it. Namiji is the way over water, and the Taira are about to drift on the western sea. Smoke and waves are both things without fixed shape, and the house is caught between them.
Norimori's poem looked only backward, at the smoke going up. Tsunemori looks back and forward at once. Set together, one poem turns around and the other looks ahead. That is why the scene needed two.
Tsunemori is the father of Tsunemasa and Atsumori. Tsunemasa, who has just returned his lute to Ninna-ji, is somewhere in this column. The father composes on the smoke ahead of them; both his sons will be killed at Ichi-no-tani the following year.
furusato……one's native place; here the capital.
yakeno no hara……ground burnt bare.
kaerimite……looking back at.
sue……what comes after; the future.
keburi no namiji……a sea road as insubstantial as smoke.
Tsunemori……Taira no Tsunemori, brother of Kiyomori and father of Tsunemasa and Atsumori.
Sadayoshi……Taira no Sadayoshi, a senior retainer of the house.
Udono……a place in Yamashiro province.
ochiudo……one fleeing after defeat.
- Source
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Heike Monogatari
- Other
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