秋風にしをるる野辺の花よりも
虫の音いたくかれにけるかな
虫の音いたくかれにけるかな
- Roma-ji
-
Akikaze ni shioruru nobe no hana yori mo mushi no ne itaku karenikeru kana
- English Translation
-
More than the flowers
of the meadow wilting in
the autumn wind's blast,
the insects' voices have grown
so withered and worn and hoarse
- Meaning
- Even more than the flowers of the field drooping in the autumn wind, the voices of the insects have grown withered and hoarse.
- Commentary
-
Book Five Autumn Poems II 510
Headnote: "On crickets in withering fields."
This is the first poem of a sequence on insects at autumn's end. More than the flowers of the fields drooping in the autumn wind, the insects' voices have grown withered and hoarse. According to the headnote, it was composed on the theme "crickets in withering fields."
The author was a son of Emperor Murakami who served as Minister of Central Affairs and was called the Later Chūsho Prince. He excelled in learning and poetry.
The scene is late autumn as the flowers wither, in fields where crickets sing.
The direct occasion was the theme "crickets in withering fields."
The first line, "akikaze ni," means "blown by the autumn wind."
In the second line, "shioruru" is the attributive of "shioru," of plants drooping and losing vigor.
In the third line, "yori" marks comparison, setting flowers against insect voices.
In the fourth line, "itaku" means "severely," the same word as in "do not settle quite so thick" of 509, leading from a poem of concern for flowers to one of lament for insect voices.
In the last line, "kare" is a pivot word joining flowers that "wither" with voices that grow "hoarse." "Ni" is perfective, "keru" the attributive of the exclamatory "keri," and "kana" exclamatory. The withering of flowers is plain to see, but the insects' voices have grown hoarse even more, uniting "withering fields" and "crickets" of the topic in one word. In 472 the cricket's voice weakened and drifted away with the night chill; here it grows hoarse, the fading insect song of deepening autumn caught in different words.
- Author
- Prince Tomohira
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- Though you may be changed moving to the ninefold court, O chrysanthemum, do not forget, in your heart, the hedge where you used to bloom
- From this time onward no more flowers will come to bloom, so I pray of you, do not settle quite so thick, dew upon chrysanthemums
- Waking in the night, even my sleeves feel the cold— on this autumn night the storm wind is blowing hard; the voice of the pine cricket
- Through the autumns passed, deep grow sorrow and the dew in Fukakusa— what comes calling at that home is only the quail, it seems