Hototogisu fukaki mine yori idenikeri toyama no suso ni koe no ochikuru

English Translation

The cuckoo has come
out of the deep peaks at last
and down at the foot
of the nearer hills its voice
comes falling and falling down

Meaning

The cuckoo has come out of the high peaks: its voice comes down to the foot of the nearer hills.

Commentary

Book Three Summer Poems 218

Headnote: as in the preceding poem, topic unknown.
That the bird has come down from the mountains is known from the direction its voice falls. The original gives neither a fresh headnote nor a fresh attribution.
The poet is the Monk Saigyo, as in the previous poem.
The time is summer; the place lies between the deep peaks and the hills near the villages.
The occasion of composition is not recorded.

The first line names the bird.
An exclamatory auxiliary in the third line marks the recognition that it has come out. It is the idea of the hundred and ninety-second and hundred and ninety-sixth poems, resting on the belief that the cuckoo comes down from the mountains to the villages.
The word in the fourth line means the hills nearest the villages, the counterpart of the deep peaks above. The bird's movement, from far to near and from high to low, is shown by the contrast of two kinds of ground.
The closing line has the voice coming down. The verb makes the sound something that descends. The bird is never seen, and its position is known only from the height and direction of the sound, the method common to this whole run.
Where the previous poem accepted that the voice might not come, here it is plainly drawing nearer, and two poems by one hand make a pair.

Author

The Monk Saigyo

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other