Ōzora o ware mo nagamete hikoboshi no tsuma matsu yo sae hitori ka mo nemu

English Translation

I too gaze up at
the wide sky, and even on
the night when he waits
the Herdsman, for his lady
must I sleep here all alone

Meaning

I too look up at the wide sky; and even on this night, when the Herdsman waits for his wife, must I sleep alone?

Commentary

Book Four Autumn Poems I 313

Headnote: for a screen of the months, in the Engi era.
A long run on the Tanabata festival begins here. In this first poem the speaker is alone on the night of the stars' meeting. The headnote assigns it to a screen of the twelve months, painted with the observances and features of each; the two hundred and eighty-third and eighty-fourth poems of Book Three belong to the same screen.
Ki no Tsurayuki compiled the Kokin Wakashu and wrote its Japanese preface. He appears in Book One from the fourteenth poem, in Book Two from the hundred and eighth, and in Book Three at the two hundred and eighty-fourth.
The time is the night of the seventh day of the seventh month; no place is given.
The occasion was the screen.
The festival rests on a tradition brought from China, in which the Herdsman and the Weaver cross the River of Heaven to meet once a year on that night. The Herdsman is Altair and the Weaver Vega.

The first line sets the scene: the sky of the painted screen, looked up at.
The particle in the second line carries the sense of I as well as they, so that the speaker is placed among those who watch what happens overhead.
The third line names the Herdsman star.
The particle in the fourth line marks addition: even on that night. Since the meeting comes once a year, this is the one night on which no one should be alone.
The closing particles join a question to an exclamation. The line is taken unchanged from the poem attributed to Kakinomoto no Hitomaro about the long trailing tail of the mountain pheasant and a long night spent alone, which is also the model behind the opening poem of Book Two. The run on Tanabata begins with a meeting in heaven set against a solitary bed on earth.

Author

Ki no Tsurayuki

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other