Saoshika no iru no no susuki hatsuobana itsushika imo ga tamakura ni semu

English Translation

Where the young stag goes
into the moor, the pampas
in its first plumed ear
when shall I make of her arm
a pillow for my head there

Meaning

The pampas grass, in its first ear, on the moor the stag goes into: when shall I have my love's arm for a pillow?

Commentary

Book Four Autumn Poems I 346

Headnote: as in the preceding poem, topic unknown.
A run on pampas grass begins here. The grass just coming into ear is likened to a beloved's arm. The original gives no fresh headnote.
The poet is Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, a poet of the Asuka period and the greatest figure of the Man'yoshu. This is his second appearance in this book, after the three hundred and thirty-third poem.
The time is autumn; the place is a moor where pampas grass grows.
The occasion of composition is not recorded.
When the grass comes into ear it is called by another name, and its plumes were likened to the tail of an animal or to a beckoning hand.

The first line names the stag, with a decorative prefix, as in Yakamochi's three hundred and thirty-fourth poem.
The second line gives the moor the deer goes into and the grass on it.
The third line names the grass in its first ear; the prefix means the first of the year, used in the eighty-fifth poem of Book One and the hundred and ninetieth of Book Three.
The word in the fourth line means when at last, or soon. In Sutoku's two hundred and eighty-sixth poem it meant before one had noticed.
The word at the close means an arm used as a pillow. From the softness of the plumes the poem passes to a wish for a meeting. Laying love over an autumn grass is the pattern of the run on the maidenflower that began at the three hundred and thirty-sixth poem.

Author

Kakinomoto no Hitomaro

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other