Nagamureba chiji ni mono omou tsuki ni mata waga mi hitotsu no mine no matsukaze

English Translation

When I gaze at it
the moon, a thousand thoughts come
and then, over them
and mine alone, no one's else
the wind in the mountain pines

Meaning

Gazing at the moon that sets a thousand thoughts going, I have besides, and mine alone, the wind in the pines on the ridge.

Commentary

Book Four Autumn Poems I 397

Headnote: as in the preceding poem, on the theme of wind before the moon.
The twenty-second poem on the moon, pairing moon and pine wind as the poem before it did. The original gives no fresh headnote.
Kamo no Chomei was born into a family of priests of the Shimogamo shrine and later took orders and wrote the Hojoki. This is his second appearance in this book, after the three hundred and sixty-sixth poem.
The time is a night in autumn; the place is a mountain ridge.
The occasion was the set topic.
The model is Oe no Chisato's poem in the Kokin Wakashu: looking at the moon, a thousand sorrows come, though the autumn is not his alone. Chisato is the poet of the four hundred and fifth piece.

The first line stands where the model's phrase for looking at the moon stands.
The second line takes up the model's thousand sorrows; the word means many, of many kinds.
The word in the third line means in addition, and from here the poem adds what the model did not have.
The fourth line is also the model's phrase, but there it was denied - the autumn is not his alone - while here it is affirmed, modifying the pine wind: the season may belong to everyone, and this wind is his own.
The poem closes on a noun. Two phrases of the model are used and its denial turned into an affirmation, so that a new poem is made, and the craft of allusion shows plainly.

Author

Kamo no Chomei

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other