Naku kari no ne o nomi zo kiku ogurayama kiri tachiharuru toki shi nakereba

English Translation

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

Meaning

I hear only the cries of the wild geese at Mount Ogura, for the mist that rises there never clears.

Commentary

Book Five Autumn Poems II 496

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the sixth and final poem of the mist sequence. Because the mist on Mount Ogura never clears, the speaker hears only the cries of the wild geese. The headnote, continued from the preceding poem, gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author was an early Heian poet and great-grandfather of Sei Shōnagon.
The scene is autumn shrouded in mist, at Mount Ogura, a poetic place in Yamashiro Province on the north bank of the Ōi River.
The direct occasion is not recorded.

The first line introduces wild geese; placing them at the close of the mist sequence links it to the goose sequence that follows.
In the second line, "nomi" is restrictive and the emphatic "zo" is resolved by the attributive "kiku": only the cries are heard, the birds unseen. The poem breaks here.
The third line, "ogurayama," is a pivot word joining the place name Ogura with "ogurashi," dim, showing the mountain darkened by mist.
The fourth line means the mist rises and then clears.
In the last line, "shi" is an emphatic particle: "since there is no time when it clears," giving by inversion the reason for the second line. The poem sings of the loneliness of hearing only the geese's cries, unable to see them for the mist. Following 495, where mist blocked the sight of distant sleeves, this poem moves from sight to hearing, closing the mist sequence and bridging to the goose poems.

Author

Kiyohara no Fukayabu

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other