三島江や霜もまだ干ぬ葦の葉に
つのぐむほどの春風ぞ吹く
つのぐむほどの春風ぞ吹く
- Roma-ji
-
Mishimae ya shimo mo mada hinu ashi no ha ni tsunogumu hodo no harukaze zo fuku
- English Translation
-
At Mishima Bay
the frost is not yet dried off
the blades of the reeds
and yet enough to bud them
the wind of spring has begun
- Meaning
- At Mishima Bay the frost has not yet dried from the reed blades, and already a spring wind blows, strong enough to bring the shoots out.
- Commentary
-
Book One Spring Poems I 25
Headnote: composed on the theme of a spring prospect over a river district, when Chinese poems were written and matched against Japanese ones.
Here begins a run on spring at the water's edge. The subject is the budding of reeds, and the scene sets a spring wind blowing over blades still frosted. The headnote refers to a gathering at which Chinese verse was composed and paired against Japanese poems, left and right, on the assigned topic of a spring prospect over a river district.
The poet, given by his court title, is Minamoto no Michiteru (1187-1248), a son of the Inner Minister Minamoto no Michichika and a member of the Murakami Genji. He later rose to Chancellor. Minamoto no Michitomo, one of the compilers of the Shin Kokin Wakashu, was his elder brother.
The season is early spring; the place is Mishima Bay in Settsu Province, along the Yodo River in what is now Takatsuki in Osaka, known for its reeds.
The occasion was the set topic of a spring prospect over a river district.
The first line raises the place name with an exclamatory particle and opens the poem by fixing the ground.
The verb in the second line means to dry, with a negative in the attributive form. Because the frost has not yet dried, we know the hour is early morning.
The verb in the third and fourth lines describes reed shoots pushing out sharp as horns. The word for extent means enough to do so, and modifies the spring wind.
An emphatic particle governs the verb at the close. Frost, the remnant of winter, and budding, the sign of spring, meet on the same reed blade, and the book's recurring subject, winter and spring in one scene, is carried over to the water's edge.
- Author
- Minamoto no Michiteru
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- The sky even now will not haze over at all the wind bites and stings clouded with the threat of snow the moon on a night of spring
- The mountains are deep and its light is cold as yet this moon of the spring the sky has clouded over and the snow keeps on falling
- Under evening moon the tide must be coming in for at Naniwa over the young leaves of reed the white waves are breaking through
- The snow that had lain piled deep on the highest peaks has melted away and down the Kiyotaki the water breaks in white waves