Aki o hete aware mo tsuyu mo fukakusa no sato tou mono wa uzura narikeri

English Translation

Through the autumns passed,
deep grow sorrow and the dew
in Fukakusa—
what comes calling at that home
is only the quail, it seems

Meaning

Autumn after autumn, sorrow and dew have grown deep at Fukakusa, and the only visitors to that village are the quail.

Commentary

Book Five Autumn Poems II 512

Headnote: "At the Poetry Contest in 1,500 Rounds."
This is the first poem of the quail sequence. At Fukakusa, where sorrow and dew have deepened autumn after autumn, the only visitor is the quail. According to the headnote, it was composed for the Poetry Contest in 1,500 Rounds.
The author was a son of Regent Fujiwara no Tadamichi and a younger brother of Kujō Kanezane. He served four times as head of the Tendai school and wrote the history Gukanshō.
The scene is late autumn in growing desolation, at the village of Fukakusa, a poetic place in Yamashiro Province south of the capital and north of Fushimi.
The direct occasion was the Poetry Contest in 1,500 Rounds, completed around 1202.
It takes as its source an exchange in the Kokinshū: Ariwara no Narihira's "If I leave this village where I have lived for years, will it become ever more a deep-grass moor?" and the reply, "If it becomes a moor, I will be a quail crying there—will you not come, if only to hunt?" In this exchange, also found in The Tales of Ise, a man is about to leave Fukakusa, and the woman answers that she will become a quail on the moor, hoping he will come at least to hunt.

The first line, "aki o hete," means "passing autumn after autumn," taking up "toshi o hete," "passing the years," of the source.
The second line, "aware mo tsuyu mo," means "both the sense of sorrow and the dew on the grass," running on to "fuka" in the third line.
The third line, "fukakusa no," is a pivot word joining the "deepening" of sorrow and dew with the place name Fukakusa, taking up the source's "deep-grass moor" to show a village grown rank with grass.
In the fourth line, "tou" means to visit, showing a village no one visits any longer.
In the last line, "keri" is exclamatory, marking a realization: "the only visitor was the quail." Building on the woman's reply that she would become a quail crying on the moor, the poem portrays a desolation that suggests the source's aftermath: years have passed, no one comes, and only the quail visits. Placed at the head of the quail sequence, it is followed by 513 and 514, which also sing of the quail's cry.

Author

Jien

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other