Okitsukaze fukei no ura ni tatsu nami no nagori ni sae ya ware wa shizumamu

English Translation

Wind off the open
sea, and in Fukei's bay
the waves rise; and I
am I to be sunk by e-
ven the last swell they leave behind

Meaning

The wind blows off the sea, and the waves rise in the bay of Fukei. Am I to be sunk by even the last swell they leave behind?

Commentary

30 The Bay of Fukei

The late Master of the Right Capital Office, at a time when he felt that he was being passed over for promotion though the season for it had come, was present when seaweed with stones attached was sent up from Kii province to the Teiji retired emperor. It was set as a topic and everyone composed on it; this is the poem he made. The prose says no more, and the section consists of this single poem.
The late Master of the Right Capital Office is Minamoto no Muneyuki, a grandson of Emperor Kōkō and one of the thirty-six poetic immortals. The office he held was head of the administration of the western half of the capital. The Teiji retired emperor is Emperor Uda, who appears in the first and second sections.
The setting is the retired emperor's residence, where seaweed with stones attached, sent from Kii, was made the topic for composition. The seaweed was of an edible kind.
What prompted the poem was that topic. Muneyuki was brooding over his promotion at the time, and the feeling came out through the assigned subject.
The section ends with the poem; no response and no later event is recorded. It was later included in the Shinsenzai-shū.

The opening names the wind off the open sea, and its function is to lead into the place name that follows.
Fukei is a bay in Kii province, and the first part of its name is also the word for the wind blowing. That the seaweed had come from Kii is what makes this the place to choose.
What the fourth line names is not the wave itself but the swell it leaves as it draws back — the faintest form of the thing.
The closing asks whether even that will be enough to sink him. Seaweed with stones on it cannot float. He lays himself over the object he has been given to write about, and states the sinking of a man passed over for promotion. The poem is composed to a topic and is in fact a petition about his own position.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

Other