Akinoyono tsumakoikanuru shikanonewa tōyamanikoso kikubekarikere

English Translation

On an autumn night
the stag that cannot hold in
his longing and cries—
that voice, I see now, was meant
to be heard from far-off hills

Meaning

The belling of a stag on an autumn night, unable to hold in his longing for his mate—that was a voice meant to be heard from distant hills.

Commentary

Section 15: The Father Passed Over at the Appointments; the Beauty of the Eastern Hills

At the appointments in the first month of the new year the author's father should have received a post, but the hope came to nothing. On that fruitless morning a poem arrived from someone who must have felt the same, with a note about the restlessness of lying awake for daybreak, telling himself that surely this time it would come; and the author replied.
Toward the end of the fourth month, for reasons that had to be met, the household moved to a place in the Eastern Hills. Along the road the seedbeds with water let into them and the fields already planted stretched away, greening faintly and pleasant to look at. In the evening, with the shadow of the hills falling dark and close before the house, forlorn and full of feeling, a water rail called and called, and she made a poem.
Ryōzen being close by, she went to worship there; finding it hard going, she stopped at a stone-ringed spring at the mountain temple and drank from her cupped hands. Someone said one could never drink enough of that water, and the author made a poem, to which he replied. On their return, with the evening sun striking clear and the whole of the capital visible in the distance, this man, saying he must go back to the city, felt the parting keenly, and sent another poem the next morning.
When the sound of a monk at his dawn devotions came to her, solemn to hear, she pushed open the door: the ridgeline was paling into light, mist lay over the dark treetops, and the sky closed in by all that foliage, cloudy and lovely, pleased her more than blossom or maples at their height. A cuckoo, too, called over and over from a bough close at hand, and she made a poem of that daybreak and that voice.
Near the end of the month a cuckoo cried noisily from a tree down toward the valley, and she composed again. As she sat gazing, the woman who was with her said: is there anyone in the city hearing this voice now, anyone who spares a thought for us sunk in reverie here? and made a poem, which the author answered.
Near what she took for daybreak, a sound came from the hills as of many people approaching. Startled, she looked out and saw a deer that had come as far as the veranda and was belling there—a voice with no charm in it heard from close by. She made a poem on that, and another on hearing that an acquaintance had come near the house and turned back.

The author is known only as the daughter of Sugawara no Takasue. Her father is Sugawara no Takasue, who hoped for a post at these appointments and was passed over. Of "the person of the same mind," "the man who drank the water," and "the woman who was with her," the text gives neither name nor station. Ryōzen is one of the peaks of the Eastern Hills, where a mountain temple stood.

Autumn of Manju 2 (1025), near daybreak, by the veranda of the house in the Eastern Hills.

Near what she took for daybreak a sound came from the hills as of a crowd approaching; startled, she looked and found a deer belling at the very edge of the veranda. Hearing that voice close at hand is what drew the poem.

It is a solitary poem, and no reply is recorded. Afterwards, hearing that an acquaintance had come near and turned back, she composed "Madahitome shiranuyamabeno matsukazemo otoshitekaeru monotokosokike," and the section closes.

Aki no yo no sets the time. In the second line tsuma is the mate and kanu is an auxiliary verb adding the sense of being unable to manage or hold something in: he cries because he cannot contain his longing. Shika no ne is the belling voice. In the fourth line koso is emphatic, bound to the perfective-conditional kere at the close, where bekari is the continuative of the auxiliary of fitness and keri the note of recognition: this was a voice that should have been heard from far away, and she understands it only after hearing it near. The stag's cry is among the most worked-over of autumn subjects in poetry, but this poem comes from hearing it at the edge of the veranda and finding it charmless, and the gap between the received form and the actual experience is the whole point. "Tatakutomo tarekakuinano kurenuruni yamajiofukaku tazunetehakomu" earlier in the section likewise inverts a set conceit, that of a bird's call taken for a visitor, and this distance from convention recurs through the Eastern Hills poems.

Author

Sugawara no Takasue no Musume

Source

Sarashina Nikki

Other