春といへば霞みにけりな昨日まで
波間に見えし淡路島山
波間に見えし淡路島山
- Roma-ji
-
Haru to ieba kasuminikeri na kinō made namima ni mieshi awajishimayama
- English Translation
-
Since they say it's spring
it has hazed over, has it
until yesterday
seen between the waves it stood
the mountains of Awaji
- Meaning
- They have only to say it is spring, and already it has hazed over: Awaji's mountains, which until yesterday stood clear between the waves.
- Commentary
-
Book One Spring Poems I 6
Headnote: topic unknown.
After Shunzei's poem, which took spring from the calendar alone, this one returns to an actual view across the sea. The difference a single day makes is carried by one change: the island has gone hazy. The headnote records no topic, and nothing is known of the circumstances.
The Monk Shune (1113-?) was a son of Minamoto no Toshiyori and a monk of Todai-ji. At his own quarters he founded a poetry salon, holding contests and gatherings open to poets regardless of rank. He taught poetry to Kamo no Chomei, who records a great many of his remarks.
The season is the opening of spring; the place is a shore looking out toward Awaji, an island lying off Settsu and Harima that had long been written about in verse.
The occasion of composition is not recorded.
The first two lines say that spring has only to be named and the view has already blurred. An exclamatory particle after the perfect auxiliary lets the surprise come through directly.
Taking the calendar's turning to change the landscape itself follows Mibu no Tadamine's poem in the Shui Wakashu, which asks whether it is only because people say spring has come that Yoshino seems hazy. That is also the model behind the anthology's opening poem, and one sees this whole run of poems working variations on a single idea.
The third line marks off time: until yesterday. It answers to the past auxiliary in the line below, and states outright the theme of a change falling on one particular day.
The fourth line places the island between the waves, so that its shape comes distinctly to mind out on the water.
The poem closes on a noun. Ending flat on the name of Awaji's mountains leaves the vanished outline hanging behind the haze.
- Author
- The Monk Shune
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- Darkening the sky still over the old village in the falling snow no footprint can be seen there and yet spring has come at last
- Since it is today spring goes even to Cathay yet all this while I had thought that it came only to the capital, no more
- The ice that had closed the clefts of rock this morning begins to melt now and the water beneath moss must be seeking out its road
- Mixed in with the wind the snow keeps on falling still and yet even so the mist is trailing across and spring has come after all