更けにけり山の端近く月冴えて
とをちの里に衣打つ声
とをちの里に衣打つ声
- Roma-ji
-
Fukenikeri yama no ha chikaku tsuki saete tōchi no sato ni koromo utsu koe
- English Translation
-
The night has grown late—
near the ridge of the mountains
the moon shining cold,
in a village far away
the sound of robes being struck
- Meaning
- Night has grown late; the moon shines cold near the mountain ridge, and from a distant village comes the sound of robes being beaten.
- Commentary
-
Book Five Autumn Poems II 485
Headnote: "When I presented a hundred-poem sequence."
This is the eleventh and final poem of the fulling-block sequence. The night has grown late, the moon shines cold near the mountain ridge, and the sound of beating robes comes from distant Tōchi. According to the headnote, it was composed as part of a hundred-poem sequence.
No author's name is given for this poem, which is placed as Princess Shokushi's, continuing the attribution of the preceding poem. The author was a daughter of Emperor Go-Shirakawa who served as Kamo Priestess and studied poetry under Fujiwara no Shunzei.
The scene is late on an autumn night, in view of the mountain ridge where the moon sinks, within hearing of fulling blocks at distant Tōchi, a poetic place in Yamato Province.
The direct occasion was the composition of a hundred-poem sequence; in the Shinkokinshū this headnote often refers to Retired Emperor Go-Toba's First Hundred-Poem Sequences of 1200.
In the first line, "ni" is the continuative of the perfective "nu" and "keri" exclamatory, expressing the realization that the night has grown late. The poem breaks here.
In the second line, "yama no ha" is the mountain ridge; the moon has sunk westward toward it.
The third line, "tsuki saete," means the moonlight is cold and clear, conveying the late-night chill through sight.
In the fourth line, "tōchi" is a pivot word joining the Yamato place name Tōchi with "far," indicating a distant village.
The last line ends on a noun, closing the poem with the sound of fulling carried from afar. It layers the sight of the cold clear moon with the sound of distant blocks, portraying late-night stillness across a wide space. Like "beaten beneath the moon" in 479, it ends with "utsu koe," closing the fulling-block sequence by joining moon and fulling block. The image of the clear moon also bridges to the moon poems beginning at 486.
- Author
- Princess Shokushi
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- From fair Yoshino the autumn wind on the hills as the night grows late— cold in the old village now, someone beats robes, I can hear
- A thousand times struck, the fulling block's sound breaks off the dream I was in— on sleeves of one lost in thought the dewdrops shatter and fall
- Late in the night's depth as the autumn draws to close, gazing at the moon, not one part of my sleeves spared, the dew has settled on them
- Sleeping all alone, on the long and trailing tail of the mountain bird frost seems to settle and stray— moonlight across my bedding