Karanishiki aki no katami ya tatsutayama chiriaenu eda ni arashi fuku nari

English Translation

Autumn's keepsake, cut
like brocade from far Cathay—
on Mount Tatsuta,
through the boughs not yet laid bare,
the storm wind is heard to blow

Meaning

The crimson leaves, like Chinese brocade, are autumn's keepsake—will they be cut away? On Mount Tatsuta I hear the storm wind blowing through the boughs where the leaves have not yet all fallen.

Commentary

Book Six Winter Poems 566

Headnote: "When I presented fifty poems."
This is the fourteenth poem of the falling-leaves sequence. The crimson leaves, like Chinese brocade, are autumn's keepsake, yet on Mount Tatsuta the storm wind blows through the boughs where leaves still remain, as if to cut that brocade away. According to the headnote, it was composed when a set of fifty poems was presented.
The author, "Kunaikyō," is Go-Toba-in no Kunaikyō. A daughter of Minamoto no Moromitsu, she served Retired Emperor Go-Toba as a lady-in-waiting and was active in his poetic circle, but died young.
The scene is early winter with leaves still clinging to the boughs, and the place is Mount Tatsuta in Yamato Province.
The direct occasion is the presentation of a fifty-poem set. The headnote does not record for which gathering the fifty poems were composed.

The first line, "karanishiki," is a splendid brocade from China, and here the many-colored autumn leaves are likened to it.
The second line, "aki no katami ya," speaks of a keepsake that recalls the autumn now gone, and "ya" is an interrogative particle. Poem 545 in Book Five also calls the autumn leaves "a keepsake of departing autumn," and the leaves treated as a keepsake in the autumn book are here exposed to the storm in the winter book.
The third line, "tatsutayama," names a poetic place in Yamato Province, Mount Tatsuta, famed for its autumn leaves. "Tatsu" also carries "to cut cloth," an associated word for the "brocade" of the first line. The poem asks whether that brocade, autumn's keepsake, is to be cut away, and breaks after the third line.
The fourth line, "chiriaenu eda ni," means "on the boughs where the leaves have not all fallen." "Aenu" adds the sense of not being able to finish.
In the last line, "arashi fuku nari," "nari" is an auxiliary that infers from sound. The poem closes by catching through sound the storm that blows on the few remaining leaves. Where the preceding poem sang of the loneliness of the pines left standing, this poem sings of the storm on the boughs where leaves still remain, the two set side by side in their attention to what is left behind. It also shares with "koe su nari" in 561 of this book the device of grasping the storm through sound.

Author

Kunaikyo

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other