Makomo karu Yodo no sawamizu fukakeredo soko made tsuki no kage wa sumikeri

English Translation

Where they cut wild rice
the marsh water at Yodo
is deep, and even
to the bottom of it, clear
the light of the moon has come

Meaning

The marsh water at Yodo, where they cut the wild rice, is deep; and still the moonlight has come clear down to the bottom of it.

Commentary

Book Three Summer Poems 229

Headnote: as in the preceding poem, topic unknown.
The second poem on wild rice. Where the previous poem showed the plants uncut in the rain, this one shows moonlight reaching the bed of the water, so that a clear night after the rain is given. The original gives no fresh headnote.
The poet, given by his court title, is Oe no Masafusa, born into a family of scholars and risen to Provisional Middle Counsellor. This is his second appearance in this book, after the two hundredth poem.
The time is a summer night; the place is Yodo in Yamashiro Province, the word also used in Kintsune's seventy-second poem in Book One.
The occasion of composition is not recorded.

The first line takes up the previous poem's phrase, so that two poems on one plant stand together.
The word in the second line means a place where the current slackens and stands, and is also a place name.
The concessive particle in the third line sets up the expectation that a deep water cannot be seen to the bottom, and the lower lines overturn it.
The fourth line has the moonlight reaching the bed of the water.
The word at the close means light, and the verb means to be clear and unclouded; an exclamatory auxiliary marks the surprise. Stating a scene that makes no sense - water deep and yet transparent to the bottom - resembles Yakamochi's twentieth poem in Book One, where snow fell from a cloudless sky. Setting a clear night among the poems of long rain gives the run its variation.

Author

Oe no Masafusa

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other