Kiri no ha mo fumiwakegataku narinikeri kanarazu hito o matsu to nakeredo

English Translation

Leaves of the kiri
have grown so deep I can scarce
push my way through them—
though it is not that I wait
for someone to come to me

Meaning

The fallen paulownia leaves have piled so deep they are hard to walk through—though it is not that I am necessarily waiting for anyone.

Commentary

Book Five Autumn Poems II 534

Headnote: "An autumn poem from a hundred-poem sequence I presented."
This is the twelfth poem of the autumn-leaves sequence. The fallen paulownia leaves have piled so deep they are hard to walk through—though the speaker is not necessarily waiting for anyone. According to the headnote, it was composed as an autumn poem in a hundred-poem sequence.
The author was a daughter of Emperor Go-Shirakawa who served as Kamo Priestess and studied poetry under Fujiwara no Shunzei.
The scene is late autumn with leaves piling up, in the garden of the author's dwelling where a paulownia grows.
The direct occasion was the composition of a hundred-poem sequence; in the Shinkokinshū this headnote often refers to Retired Emperor Go-Toba's First Hundred-Poem Sequences of 1200.

In the first line, "kiri" is the large-leaved paulownia, and "mo" implies "even the paulownia leaves, along with others."
The second line, "fumiwakegataku," means so deep it is hard to walk through, showing the depth of fallen leaves.
In the third line, "ni" is the continuative of the perfective "nu" and "keri" exclamatory, expressing the realization of how things have become. The poem breaks here.
The fourth line, together with "nakeredo" in the last line, means "not necessarily ... someone."
In the last line, "do" is concessive, attaching by inversion to the third line. While seeming to lament that the leaves have buried the path and made visits ever harder, the speaker denies waiting for anyone—and the denial lets the loneliness beneath the waiting seep through. It uses the same "kanarazu ... do" construction as 470, a pattern that reveals feeling through negation. Following the leaf-buried house of 533, the next poem, 535, states plainly that "no one comes."

Author

Princess Shokushi

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other