Yūzukuyo shio michikurashi Naniwae no ashi no wakaba ni koyuru shiranami

English Translation

Under evening moon
the tide must be coming in
for at Naniwa
over the young leaves of reed
the white waves are breaking through

Meaning

The evening moon is up, and the tide must be rising: at Naniwa Bay the white waves are washing over the young leaves of the reeds.

Commentary

Book One Spring Poems I 26

Headnote: as in the preceding poem, on the theme of a spring prospect over a river district.
This poem comes from the same gathering and the same topic as the one before. Where that poem showed reeds in the morning, this one shows them at dusk, so that the two make a pair. The original gives no fresh headnote, marking the poem as a continuation.
Fujiwara no Hideyoshi (1184-1240) served Retired Emperor Go-Toba as a guard of the northern quarters. The retired sovereign valued him as a poet, and after the Jokyu disturbance he took orders under the name Nyogan.
The season is an early spring evening; the place is Naniwa Bay in Settsu Province, the inlet along what is now the city of Osaka, and like Mishima Bay a place known for its reeds.
The occasion was the set topic of a spring prospect over a river district.

The first line names the moon that rises in the evening, and with it the hour, fixing the scene at the outset.
The auxiliary in the second line expresses inference from evidence: something visible warrants the conclusion. That evidence is the white waves of the final line. It is the same construction as in the second poem of the anthology.
The third and fourth lines give place and object. The young leaves answer to the budding shoots of the previous poem, a later stage of the same growth, so that between the two pieces the reeds have come on.
The poem closes on a noun. The concrete sight of waves washing over the reeds is held back to the end, and only there is the inference of the second line accounted for. Stating the inference first and its grounds last is the structure of the second poem as well.

Author

Fujiwara no Hideyoshi

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other