山里の稲葉の風に寝覚めして
夜深く鹿の声を聞くかな
夜深く鹿の声を聞くかな
- Roma-ji
-
Yamazato no inaba no kaze ni nezame shite yobukaku shika no koe o kiku kana
- English Translation
-
Mountain village home:
wakened by the wind that stirs
through the rice-plant leaves,
deep into the night I hear
the voice of the calling deer
- Meaning
- In a mountain village, woken by the wind rustling the rice leaves, I hear the voice of the deer deep in the night.
- Commentary
-
Book Five Autumn Poems II 449
Headnote: "When Retired Emperor Shirakawa was staying at Toba and people composed poems on the topic 'autumn pleasures at a farmhouse.'"
This is the thirteenth poem of the deer sequence. Woken by the wind in the rice leaves of a mountain village, the speaker hears the deer deep in the night. According to the headnote, it is one of the poems composed on the topic "autumn pleasures at a farmhouse" while Retired Emperor Shirakawa was staying at Toba Palace.
The author was the fourth son of Minister of the Right Minamoto no Morofusa of the Murakami Genji. He rose to Senior Second Rank and Major Counselor and was also called the Mibu Counselor. The Master of the Empress's Household headed the office serving the empress.
The scene is late on an autumn night, in a mountain village where the rice is ripening.
The direct occasion was a poetry gathering during Shirakawa's stay at Toba Palace south of the capital, where the topic "autumn pleasures at a farmhouse" was set. Toba Palace was a detached palace Shirakawa built near the confluence of the Kamo and Katsura rivers.
The first line presents the setting that corresponds to "farmhouse" in the topic.
The second line means "by the wind rustling the leaves of the ripening rice." Taking up the paddy and hut of the preceding poem, it introduces the rice leaves.
The third line means "woke in the night" to that rustling. It is the same phrase as in 447 and closes the group of waking poems.
The fourth line means "of the deer, while the night is still deep."
In the last line, "kana" is exclamatory. The layering of sounds—waking to the wind in the rice and then hearing the deer—expresses the "autumn pleasures" of the topic, the deep mood of an autumn night in the hills. "Rice leaves" and "wind" are taken up again in 453, where the autumn wind in the rice leaves wets the sleeves of the one guarding the hut.
- Author
- Minamoto no Morotada
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- Since I woke from sleep a long while now has gone by— this long autumn night, has it at last turned to dawn? I hear the deer calling out
- Near my hut that stands by the little mountain field the stag cries and wakes me with a start—so in turn I start him and chase him off
- Does sleeping alone weigh more lonely on the stag who lies down at dawn on the moor where the wind turns the kudzu leaves inside out?
- On Mount Tatsuta as the treetops grow sparser with each passing day, deep within, the stag is heard rustling through the fallen leaves