Yorozuyo o nobe no atari ni sumu hito wa meguru meguru ya aki o matsuramu

English Translation

Living out ten thousand
ages there beside the fields,
does she wait, and wait
through all their turning round and
round, for autumn to come again?

Meaning

Living out ten thousand ages beside the fields, does she wait through all their turning for autumn to come again?

Commentary

39 Screen Poems for the Celebration of the Minister of the Left of Koichijō

The eighth month came. About that time the world was in an uproar over the celebration for the Minister of the Left of Koichijō. The Captain of the Left Gate Guards was to have the screens made, and by way of a connection that had no business asking for poems, the author was pressed to write. What one is given is a written list of the scenes painted on the screens. She sent it back again and again, saying the thing was hollow; but they insisted beyond all reason, and so in the evenings, in the intervals of moon-gazing, she thought out one or two at a time. What follows are the poems made for each of the painted scenes. Thus she was forced into a tiresome business, and into a great number of pieces besides; and of these, she hears, the one on the fishing fires and the one on the flock of plovers were the ones chosen.
The author was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu. Neither the Minister of the Left of Koichijō nor the Captain of the Left Gate Guards who arranged the celebration is named in the text, which gives only office and residence; marginal notes in the base text identify them as Fujiwara no Morotada and Fujiwara no Naritoki. A screen poem is written to accompany a scene painted on a screen, the poet being given a written description of the picture beforehand.
It is the eighth month of the second year of Anna, and the place is the author's dwelling.
It was written for a painting in which a woman's carriage, out to see the autumn leaves, comes to a house rich in them; it is the last of the nine.
The narrative closes the sequence by saying that she was forced into a tiresome business and a great number of pieces besides, and that of them the one on the fishing fires and the one on the flock of plovers were chosen.

The opening names ten thousand ages, the language of felicitation, and by placing it first the poem sets an ordinary outing to see the autumn leaves at once within the frame of a blessing. The second line gives the situation of the house in the picture, and the third turns to its mistress. The fourth repeats a single word, so that it holds both the turning round of the seasons and the going about to view the leaves, and the doubling gives the poem its movement. The close conjectures that she waits for autumn. To say that she waits, through ten thousand ages, for an autumn that comes every year turns the simple pleasure of looking forward to the leaves into a wish for long life. Placed last of the nine, it frames its theme — the turning of the seasons — between the ten thousand ages of the first line and the autumn of the last.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other