思ふことなくてぞ見まし紅葉葉を
あらしの山の麓ならずは
あらしの山の麓ならずは
- Roma-ji
-
Omou koto nakute zo mimashi momijiba o arashi no yama no fumoto narazu wa
- English Translation
-
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
- Meaning
- I could gaze upon the autumn leaves free of cares, were this not the foot of Arashiyama, the mountain named for the storm that scatters them.
- Commentary
-
Book Five Autumn Poems II 528
Headnote: "When I went to the Ōi River to view the autumn leaves."
This is the sixth poem of the autumn-leaves sequence. The speaker could view the leaves without care, were this not the foot of the mountain named for the storm. According to the headnote, it was composed when viewing autumn leaves at the Ōi River.
The author was an official and poet of the mid-Heian period.
The scene is autumn at the height of the foliage, on the bank of the Ōi River at the foot of Arashiyama. The Ōi flows through Saga in Yamashiro, and Arashiyama on its west bank is famed for autumn leaves.
The direct occasion was an outing to view the autumn leaves at the Ōi River.
In the first line, "omou koto" is care or worry, and "zo" is emphatic.
In the second line, "mashi," the attributive of the counterfactual auxiliary, resolves "zo": "I would have viewed them without care." The poem breaks here.
The third line gives, by inversion, the object of viewing.
In the fourth line, "arashi" is a pivot word joining the place name Arashiyama with the "storm" that scatters the leaves.
In the last line, "zu wa" is a hypothetical, "if it were not." At the foot of a mountain named for the storm, one worries when the leaves will be scattered and cannot view them in peace—a witty play on the place name expressing regret for the leaves. Like "I could see the very sleeves" in 495, it uses the counterfactual "zu wa ... mashi." Arashiyama faces Mount Ogura of 496 across the Ōi River, and in 530 the storm on Mount Tatsuta continues the pairing of storm and autumn leaves.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Sukemasa
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- 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
- 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?
- In the setting sun by the hills of Saho, where the oak groves stand, fall leaves like a rain that comes down from a sky without a cloud
- On Mount Tatsuta has the storm grown weak upon the summit's high peak? though no one crosses the stream its brocade has broken off