Ashihiki no yama no anata ni sumu hito wa matade ya aki no tsuki o miruramu

English Translation

Those who make their homes
over beyond the mountains
do they see the moon
of autumn without having
to wait for it as we do

Meaning

Do those who live on the far side of the mountains see the autumn moon without any waiting?

Commentary

Book Four Autumn Poems I 382

Headnote: as in the preceding poem, topic unknown.
The seventh poem on the moon. From the side where the mountains delay the moonrise, the poet thinks of those on the other side. The original gives no fresh headnote.
Retired Emperor Sanjo (976-1017) was the second son of Emperor Reizei. He abdicated on account of an affliction of the eyes.
The time is a night in autumn; the place is the near side of the mountains.
The occasion of composition is not recorded.

The first line is a pillow word attaching to the word for mountain, used in the hundred and sixty-second poem of Book Two and the hundred and ninety-sixth of Book Three.
The word in the second line means the far side, so that the mountain divides two positions.
The third line names the people on that side.
In the fourth line a negative connective and an interrogative particle give the sense of without waiting. On this side the mountain holds the moon back; on that side it must already be up.
The auxiliary at the close expresses present conjecture. Reasoning about a place where one is not is the pattern of Ben no Menoto's hundred and ninety-second poem in Book Three, which wondered at whose house the cuckoo was being heard: someone else at the same hour in another place.

Author

Retired Emperor Sanjo

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other