たつた川もみぢみだれて流るめり
わたらば錦なかや絶えなむ
わたらば錦なかや絶えなむ
- Roma-ji
-
Tatsutagawa momiji midarete nagarumeri wataraba nishiki naka ya taenamu
- English Translation
-
Down the Tatsuta
the autumn leaves come scattered
and tangled, it seems —
and were I to cross, that brocade
would surely part in the middle
- Meaning
- Down the Tatsuta the autumn leaves come scattered and tangled; and were I to cross, that brocade would surely be broken in the middle.
- Commentary
-
151 The Tatsuta River
The same emperor at Nara, looking at the fine autumn leaves on the Tatsuta river, heard Kakinomoto no Hitomaro compose "Tatsutagawa momijiba nagaru kannabi no Mimuro no yama ni shigure fururashi", and himself composed "Tatsutagawa momiji midarete nagarumeri wataraba nishiki naka ya taenamu". That is the whole of the section.
The emperor at Nara is the emperor of the Nara capital, who appears in the hundred and fiftieth section. Kakinomoto no Hitomaro is the great poet of the Man'yō-shū, who composes at the Sarusawa pond in that section. The Tatsuta river flows through Yamato and was famous for its autumn leaves; the sacred hill of Mimuro stands above it.
The setting is the same river.
What prompted the poem is Hitomaro's, "Tatsutagawa momijiba nagaru kannabi no Mimuro no yama ni shigure fururashi". The emperor answers it.
The section closes with this poem.
He opens from Hitomaro's own river — a properly matched reply.
What follows says the leaves come scattered and tangled, in a grammar of inference from what the eye sees.
The brocade is the leaves spread on the water, taken for figured cloth.
The closing asks whether it would part in the middle, the word meaning the centre or the midpoint. He hesitates to cross for fear of tearing the cloth. Where Hitomaro reasoned upstream, the emperor keeps his eye on the water in front of him, so that the same scene is carried in two directions.
- Source
- Yamato Monogatari
- Other
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- The Sarusawa pond is unfeeling too — if she went down and took the jewelled weed upon her the water should have dried up
- Down the Tatsuta the autumn leaves are floating — then on the sacred hill of Mimuro, it seems the cold rains must be falling
- What is thought and not spoken — that is the greater by far, and I say nothing: not of Iwate not of the bird, nothing more
- The thoroughwort that all the world delights in for its scent — and today I have broken off a spray for you, and for you alone