鈴鹿川深き木の葉に日数経て
山田の原の時雨をぞ聞く
山田の原の時雨をぞ聞く
- Roma-ji
-
Suzukagawa fukaki konoha ni hikazu hete yamada no hara no shigure o zo kiku
- English Translation
-
By Suzuka's stream
through the deep fallen leaves, days
have passed on my way—
on the plain of Yamada
I listen to the showers
- Meaning
- Days have passed as I made my way through the deep fallen leaves along the Suzuka River, and now on the plain of Yamada I listen to the showers.
- Commentary
-
Book Five Autumn Poems II 526
Headnote: "For the sliding panel at Saishō Shitennō-in depicting the Suzuka River."
This is the fourth poem of the autumn-leaves sequence. After days of travel along the Suzuka River through deep fallen leaves, the traveler hears the showers on the plain of Yamada. According to the headnote, it was written for the part of a sliding panel at Saishō Shitennō-in that depicted the Suzuka River.
The author was a son of Emperor Takakura who ruled as retired emperor after abdicating, established the Poetry Office, and ordered the compilation of the Shinkokinshū. Defeated in the Jōkyū War, he was exiled to the Oki Islands.
The scene is late autumn with leaves piled deep, on a journey in Ise Province from the Suzuka River to the plain of Yamada, both poetic places in Ise.
The direct occasion was adding a poem to the sliding panels painted with famous places of the provinces at Saishō Shitennō-in, a temple Go-Toba founded.
The first line, "Suzukagawa," names the river in Ise Province that was the subject of the panel painting.
The second line means "in the deep-piled fallen leaves," a scene of a mountain road in late autumn.
The third line, "hikazu hete," means "after many days," showing the length of the journey.
In the fourth line, "Yamada no hara" is a place in Ise, marking the journey's destination.
In the last line, the emphatic "zo" is resolved by the attributive "kiku." From the Suzuka River in the painting, the poet imagines the journey's time to the unpainted plain of Yamada, turning from the visible scene of leaves to the sound of showers. Whereas 525 imagined hills colored by showers, this poem hears the showers as sound, depicting the same showers through sight and hearing.
- Author
- Go-Toba In
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- On the mountainside where a light mist drifts and whirls the bright autumn leaves, though they are not clearly seen, can be known for what they are
- The treetops that crown Kaminabi's Mimuro— how must they look now, when common hills everywhere are touched by passing showers?
- Do they turn to red of their own heart's will, the trees on Mount Tatsuta? Is it that the pines are not wet by the autumn showers?
- Free of brooding thoughts I would gaze upon these leaves of crimson autumn, were it not the foot of hills named for the storm that scatters