Ichijiruki yamaguchi naraba koko nagara kami no keshiki o miseyo to zo omou

English Translation

If this is a gate
of the hills where the god's power
shows itself plainly,
then from just here, where I stand,
let me be shown his mind.

Meaning

If this is a mountain gate where the god's power shows itself plainly, then from just here, without climbing further, let me be shown his mind.

Commentary

23 Poems Offered at Inari and Kamo

The ninth month came, and thinking that the world would be at its most beautiful, that she should like to go on a pilgrimage somewhere and lay before the god the frailty of her own situation, she set out very quietly to a certain place. On a single sheaf of offerings she wrote these poems: one for the lower shrine, one for the middle, one for the last. Then, at the end of the same month, she went in the same manner to another place, this time with two sheaves: two poems for the lower shrine and two for the upper. Such were the things she muttered where no god could hear them.
The author was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu. The place she visited in secret is understood to be Inari at Fushimi, since one of the poems names Mount Inari. The other place, visited at the end of the same month, is understood to be the Kamo shrines, since the poems speak of the purification stream and the sacred grove. The text names neither shrine, calling them only the lower, the middle and the last, and the lower and the upper.
It is the ninth month of the third year of Kōhō, and the place is the lower shrine of the sanctuary she visited in secret.
Having resolved that the world would be at its finest, that she should go on some pilgrimage and lay her frail situation before the god, she went quietly there and wrote this first, on a single sheaf of offerings, for the lower shrine.
For the middle shrine she wrote "Inariyama ōku no toshi zo koenikeri inoru shirushi no sugi o tanomite," and for the last "Kamigami to noborikudari wa waburedomo mada sakayukanu kokoro koso sure."

The opening means that the god's power is unmistakably shown, and the poem begins by praising the shrine's efficacy. The second line names the gate or foot of the mountain, which is the lower shrine at the base of Mount Inari; of three poems written for three shrines in turn, this way of naming the place suits the first. The third line means: from where I stand, without going up — carrying the implication that she need not climb to the summit. The fourth asks for the god's mind, the sign by which his will appears. The close is bound by an emphatic particle and states the petition outright. There is neither pivot nor related word; the poem simply fits the notion of a mountain gate to the phrase about standing where she is, and so takes the proper shape for the first offering of a pilgrimage. As the narrative says, these were things muttered where no god could hear: they were written on the offerings rather than spoken at the shrine.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other