Aki no yo no tsuki ya Ojima no ama no hara akegata chikaki oki no tsuribune

English Translation

The moon of a night
in autumn, and the sea's plain
and I would keep it
and near daybreak, far out there
the fishing boats on the deep

Meaning

Shall I not grieve to lose the autumn moon over the fishers' plain at Ojima? Daybreak is near, and the fishing boats are out on the offing.

Commentary

Book Four Autumn Poems I 403

Headnote: on the moon at the shore, for a contest at the Bureau of Poetry.
The fifth poem on the moon at the shore. Fishing boats out at sea near daybreak are set beside the regret at losing the moon. The headnote assigns it to a contest at the Bureau of Poetry.
Fujiwara no Ietaka was one of the compilers of the Shin Kokin Wakashu; this is his sixth appearance in this book, after the three hundred and eighty-ninth and ninety-second poems.
The time is near daybreak in autumn; the place is Ojima in Mutsu Province, the ground of the three hundred and ninety-ninth poem.
The occasion was submission to the contest.

The place name in the second line sounds the phrase for grieving to lose a thing, and the particle before it, besides being exclamatory, carries the note of that question. A word of feeling is folded into a name.
The third line means the plain of the fisherfolk, and also sounds the phrase for the plain of heaven, so that it works for sea and sky at once. Two pivots stand one after another.
The fourth line gives the hour: the moon is about to go, and the reason for the regret is disclosed.
The poem closes on a noun. After the regret has been stated, what stands last is the boat of working people. Chomei's four hundred and first poem set the labouring fishers in the scene, and this one does the same, so that those who grieve for the moon and those who work under it occupy one view.

Author

Fujiwara no Ietaka

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other