小倉山峰のもみぢ葉心あらば
いまひとたびのみゆき待たなむ
いまひとたびのみゆき待たなむ
- Roma-ji
-
Ogurayama mine no momijiba kokoro araba ima hitotabi no miyuki matanamu
- English Translation
-
Autumn leaves upon
the peak of Ogura, if
you have hearts at all
then wait — wait for one more
progress of the emperor
- Meaning
- Autumn leaves on the peak of Ogura, if you have hearts at all, wait for one more imperial progress before you fall.
- Commentary
-
99 The Autumn Leaves on the Peak
When the Chancellor Fujiwara no Tadahira accompanied the retired emperor in holy orders to the Ōi river, the autumn leaves on Mount Ogura were so beautiful that he said he would certainly urge the emperor to make a progress there, and composed this poem. On his return he did urge it, and that, we are told, is how the progresses to Ōi began. The section closes on that sentence.
Fujiwara no Tadahira rose to Chancellor and appears in the ninety-seventh and ninety-eighth sections. The Ōi river flows through Yamashiro province, and Mount Ogura stands on its northern bank.
The setting is the bank of the Ōi river, with the leaves of Ogura at their height.
What prompted the poem was the sight of them and the wish that the emperor might see them too.
On his return he urged it, and the progresses to Ōi began. A single poem produced an institution. The poem was later included in the Shūi-shū and in the Hundred Poems by a Hundred Poets.
The poem opens by addressing the leaves on the peak of Ogura — not a person but foliage.
What follows supposes that they have hearts, and only on that supposition can the request be made at all.
The word for the progress is the term for an emperor's going out; some read the same sound as deep snow, but here it is the progress.
The closing is a wish directed at another: that they would wait. He does not tell them not to fall; he tells them to wait. Asking them to hold their time rather than change their nature is what keeps the poem from insisting.
- Source
- Yamato Monogatari
- Other
-
- The moon that was hid has come round and risen a- gain — and even in its light, in all that light, she is nowhere to be seen now
- I had thought the one sorrow was the taking off of mourning — and yet here is another colour that keeps her memory too
- Once they have scattered it will be too late to mind — and on the Ōi's bank the yellow roses are at their height, and that is today
- How it galls me now that we promised to meet a- gain another day I should have said instead that today was the last of it