Ware naranu hito mo aware ya masaruran shika naku yama no aki no yūgure

English Translation

Do others as well,
not I alone, feel their hearts
deepen into grief
on the mountain where stags cry
in the dusk of autumn days?

Meaning

Do others besides me also feel their sense of pathos deepen at dusk in autumn, on the mountain where the deer are crying?

Commentary

Book Five Autumn Poems II 443

Headnote: "Composed on the topic 'hearing deer at evening.'"
This is the seventh poem of the deer sequence. The poet wonders whether, at autumn dusk on a mountain where deer cry, others too feel their pathos deepen. According to the headnote, it was composed on the topic "hearing deer at evening."
The author was a son of Koga Masamichi of the Murakami Genji. He rose to Palace Minister and was called the Tsuchimikado Palace Minister after his residence. A powerful close retainer of Retired Emperor Go-Toba, he also served at the Poetry Office.
The scene is autumn dusk, on a mountain where deer cry.
The direct occasion was the topic "hearing deer at evening."

The first line, "ware naranu," means "not myself."
In the second line, "mo" implies "others, as well as I." "Aware" is the deep feeling stirred in the heart, and "ya" is an interrogative particle.
In the third line, "masaru" means to grow stronger, and "ran," the attributive of the conjectural "ramu," is bound to "ya." By extending his feeling to others as a conjecture, the poet indirectly shows the intensity of his own pathos.
The fourth line presents the "hearing deer" of the topic.
The last line ends on a noun and corresponds to "evening" in the topic, closing the poem by setting the deer's cry at autumn dusk, the height of seasonal feeling. After the deer at night and in the wind in 438 through 442, the sequence returns to the evening deer of 437. The same last line is used in 491, where mist evokes the feeling of that same hour.

Author

Minamoto no Michichika

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other