Saoshika no tsuma tou yama no okabe naru wasada wa karaji shimo wa oku tomo

English Translation

On the hillside slopes
where the stag calls for his mate
the early rice fields
I will leave unreaped for now,
even though the frost settles

Meaning

The early rice fields on the slopes of the mountain where the stag calls for his mate—I will not reap them, even if the frost settles.

Commentary

Book Five Autumn Poems II 459

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the seventh poem of the sequence on autumn fields and the autumn chill. The speaker resolves not to reap the early rice field on the hillside where the stag calls for its mate, even if frost settles. The headnote, continued from the preceding poem, gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
No author's name is given for this poem, which is placed as Hitomaro's, continuing the attribution of the preceding poem. The author was a poet who served at the courts of Empress Jitō and Emperor Monmu in the Asuka period.
The scene is autumn when frost begins to settle, at an early rice field on the hillside of a mountain where deer cry.
The direct occasion is not recorded.
Book Ten of the Man'yōshū records a version, "Saoshika no tsuma yobu yama no okabe naru wasada wa karaji shimo wa furu tomo"; the Shinkokinshū gives the second line as "tsuma tou yama no" and the last as "shimo wa oku tomo."

In the first line, "sa" is a prefix and the word means stag. After the deer sequence has ended, a deer appears again among the field poems.
In the second line, "tsuma tou" means to call for a mate, the same phrase as in "the stag calls for his mate" in 446.
The third line means "lying on the hillside."
In the fourth line, "wasada" is a field of early-ripening rice, and "ji" is the negative volitional auxiliary: "I will not reap it." The poem breaks here.
In the last line, "tomo" is a concessive conditional, "even if frost settles," and the inversion strengthens the resolve of the fourth line. Even at the risk of frost damage to the rice, the speaker will not disturb the place where the stag calls its mate—a gesture of consideration for the deer. In 448 the field-guard startled the deer away; here the field is left unreaped for the deer's sake, reversing the relation between field and deer. The frost takes up "frost falls" in 458.

Author

Kakinomoto no Hitomaro

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other