Akikaze no yaya hadasamuku fuku nae ni ogi no uwaha no oto zo kanashiki

English Translation

The wind of autumn
blows a little cold, and with
its blowing there comes
the sound of the reeds' top leaves
and that sound is a sad one

Meaning

As the autumn wind blows a little cold on the skin, the sound of the reeds' upper leaves is a sad one.

Commentary

Book Four Autumn Poems I 355

Headnote: from the time when he presented a hundred-poem sequence to Emperor Horikawa.
The fourth poem on the reed's upper leaves. The cold of the wind and the sound of the leaves arrive together, and the sound is called sad. The headnote assigns it to the Horikawa sequences, from which the tenth and nineteenth poems of Book One and the three hundred and twenty-eighth of this book also come.
Fujiwara no Mototoshi (1060-1142) was a poet of the late Heian period and the teacher in poetry of Fujiwara no Shunzei. In Book Three he is the poet of the two hundred and thirtieth poem.
The time is autumn; the place is where reeds grow.
The occasion was the presentation of the hundred-poem sequence.

The first line names the subject.
The second line means somewhat cold on the skin, the phrase used in Yoshitada's three hundred and eleventh poem, so that the two share it.
The word in the third line means at the same time as, so that the cold of the wind and the sound of the leaves come together.
The fourth line uses the words of the three hundred and fifty-second and fifty-third poems; four pieces share them and form the run on the reed.
An emphatic particle governs the attributive form at the close. The sound itself is called sad, and no reason is given. As in Sanesada's three hundred and fourth poem, where tears fell for nothing that could be named, and Jien's three hundred and fifty-second, where the days were simply sad, a feeling without a cause recurs as the subject of autumn.

Author

Fujiwara no Mototoshi

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other