秋風に山飛び越ゆる雁がねの
いや遠ざかり雲隠れつつ
いや遠ざかり雲隠れつつ
- Roma-ji
-
Akikaze ni yama tobikoyuru karigane no iya tōzakari kumogakuretsutsu
- English Translation
-
On the autumn wind
crossing over the mountains,
the wild geese in flight
draw ever farther away,
vanishing into the clouds
- Meaning
- Borne on the autumn wind, the wild geese cross over the mountains, drawing ever farther away as they vanish into the clouds.
- Commentary
-
Book Five Autumn Poems II 498
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the second poem of the wild goose sequence. The geese crossing the mountains on the autumn wind draw ever farther away, vanishing into the clouds. 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 with the wind blowing, within sight of the mountains the geese cross.
The direct occasion is not recorded.
It is a variant of an anonymous poem in Book Ten of the Man'yōshū, "Akikaze ni yama tobikoyuru karigane no koe tōzakaru kumogakururashi," differing in the fourth and last lines.
The first line, "akikaze ni," means "on the autumn wind."
The second line, "yama tobikoyuru," means "crossing over the mountains," showing the sweeping movement of the geese's migration.
In the third line, "karigane" here refers to the geese themselves.
In the fourth line, "iya" means "ever more," showing the geese gradually receding. In 472 an insect's voice was "drifting away"; here it is the geese themselves that recede.
In the last line, "tsutsu" is a continuative particle, ending the poem with the lingering image of geese moving away while hiding in the clouds. Whereas 497 heard the geese arriving, this poem watches them depart, pairing coming and going, sound and sight. "Crossing over the mountains" is used again in 501, there as the voice of the first geese.
- Author
- Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- 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
- As the first geese's wings stir a wind that grows so cool, who, in lodgings far, sleeping on the traveler's road, would not turn his robe around?
- The wild geese fly by racing with the wind as though vying as they pass, yet from the one I await not a single word they bring