Hotaru tobu nosawa ni shigeru ashi no ne no yonayona shita ni kayou akikaze

English Translation

Where the fireflies fly
through the roots of the thick reeds
of the marshy field
night by night beneath them goes
the wind of autumn, unseen

Meaning

Where the fireflies fly over the marshy field, the autumn wind passes night after night below, among the roots of the thick reeds.

Commentary

Book Three Summer Poems 273

Headnote: from the time when he presented a fifty-poem sequence.
The second poem on fireflies. Where they fly by night, the wind of autumn is already passing. The headnote assigns it to a fifty-poem sequence.
The poet, given as Regent and Chancellor, is Fujiwara no Yoshitsune; this is his seventh appearance in this book, after the two hundred and seventieth.
The time is a night at the end of summer; the place is a marshy field thick with reeds.
The occasion was the presentation of the fifty poems.

The first line gives the summer scene.
The second line fixes the place.
The third line names the roots of the reeds, and the sound of that word runs on into the phrase below, so that the lines are joined by sound as well.
The fourth line means every night, and the word for below means the unseen ground among the roots.
The poem closes on a noun. Summer's fireflies fly above and autumn's wind passes below them, so that the two seasons are stacked. Following the two hundred and seventieth and seventy-first poems, which found autumn in lower leaves and lower dew, this one too places it low down, and three poems share the method.

Author

Fujiwara no Yoshitsune

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other