Fukakusa no sato no tsukikage sabishisa mo sumikoshi mama no nobe no akikaze

English Translation

At Fukakusa
the moonlight on the village
and the loneliness
just as it was lived in, clear
the autumn wind on the moor

Meaning

The moonlight on the village of Fukakusa, and the loneliness of it, are as they have always been, lived in and clear: the autumn wind across the moor.

Commentary

Book Four Autumn Poems I 374

Headnote: for the contest in fifteen hundred rounds.
Set at the village of Fukakusa, the poem takes an unchanging loneliness. The headnote assigns it to the contest in fifteen hundred rounds.
The poet, given by his court title, is Minamoto no Michitomo, a son of the Inner Minister Minamoto no Michichika and one of the compilers of the Shin Kokin Wakashu. This is his second appearance in this book, after the two hundred and ninety-fourth poem.
The time is autumn; the place is Fukakusa in Yamashiro Province, the ground of Yoshitsune's two hundred and ninety-third poem and known from the Tales of Ise as the setting of a man's leaving a woman behind.
The occasion was submission to the contest.

The first line is a place name whose characters mean deep grass, and it brings with it the idea of a village overgrown, as in the two hundred and ninety-third poem.
The word in the second line means light.
The particle in the third line carries the sense of the moonlight and the loneliness both. Jakuren's three hundred and sixty-first poem opened on that same word for loneliness; here it stands as one item in a list.
The verb in the fourth line means both to live in a place and, of moonlight, to be clear. Taken with the village it is living; taken with the moonlight it is clearness. The word after it means having gone on doing so.
The poem closes on a noun. Into that unchangingness, of a place lived in and a light kept clear, the autumn wind blows. The two hundred and ninety-third poem said that people might leave and autumn would not; this one takes the same ground from the side of those who have stayed.

Author

Minamoto no Michitomo

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other