山里に霧の籬の隔てずは
遠方人の袖も見てまし
遠方人の袖も見てまし
- Roma-ji
-
Yamazato ni kiri no magaki no hedatezu wa ochikatabito no sode mo mitemashi
- English Translation
-
In the mountain home,
were it not for the mist's hedge
standing in between,
I could see the very sleeves
of those passing far away
- Meaning
- In this mountain village, if the hedge of mist did not stand between us, I could see even the sleeves of people in the distance.
- Commentary
-
Book Five Autumn Poems II 495
Headnote: "Topic unknown."
This is the fifth poem of the mist sequence. In a mountain village, if the mist did not stand between like a hedge, one could see even the sleeves of people far off. The headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author was a mid-Heian poet also called Sotan from his post as Secretary of Tango.
The scene is autumn with mist all around, in a mountain village.
The direct occasion is not recorded.
The first line sets the place as a mountain village.
In the second line, "magaki" is a loosely woven fence of bamboo or brushwood; the mist is likened to such a hedge.
In the third line, "zu wa" is a hypothetical, "if it did not," answering "mashi" in the last line.
In the fourth line, "ochikatabito" is a person far away or passing in the distance.
In the last line, "mashi" is the counterfactual auxiliary, showing that in fact the mist blocks the view. Likening mist to a hedge, the poem wittily treats it as a barrier. In 493 people's sleeves showed faintly in the autumn mist; here the mist hides even distant sleeves, reversing the same "sleeves of people" between seen and unseen. The next poem, 496, hears only the cries of geese because of mist, moving from what cannot be seen to what is heard.
- Author
- Sone no Yoshitada
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- Ah, the break of day— on the river's rising waves a shallow-draft boat— is someone taking it down? sleeves glimpsed in the autumn mist
- The foot of the hills lies hidden by Uji's mist rising from the stream, and high among the clouds shows the peak of Mount Asahi
- Of the crying geese I can only hear the calls on dim Ogura, for the mist that rises there never has a time to clear
- By the hedge the reeds rustle in their leaves, and as the autumn wind blows, sweeping through them, even now the wild geese are calling out