いつの間に空の気色の変はるらん
はげしき今朝の木枯らしの風
はげしき今朝の木枯らしの風
- Roma-ji
-
Itsu no ma ni sora no keshiki no kawaruran hageshiki kesa no kogarashi no kaze
- English Translation
-
When, before I knew,
did the sky change its look?
Fierce this morning,
the withering winter blast,
the wind of kogarashi
- Meaning
- When did the look of the sky change like this, without my noticing? How fiercely it blows this morning—the withering wind of early winter!
- Commentary
-
Book Six Winter Poems 569
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the seventeenth poem of the falling-leaves sequence. Struck by the fierce withering wind of the morning, the speaker wonders when the look of the sky could have changed. The headnote continues from the preceding poem with no topic given, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author, "Tsumori no Kunimoto," is Tsumori no Kunimoto. He was a poet of the Tsumori family, which served as chief priests of the Sumiyoshi Shrine in Settsu Province.
The scene is an early winter morning, and the place is beneath a sky swept by the withering wind.
The direct occasion is not recorded.
The first line, "itsu no ma ni," means "before I knew it," and the poem begins with surprise at a change.
The second line, "sora no keshiki no," refers to the look of the sky.
The third line, "kawaruran," means "has it changed?" with "ran" as an auxiliary of present conjecture. Answering "itsu no ma ni" in the first line, it expresses a question, and the poem breaks after the third line.
The fourth line, "hageshiki kesa no," means "this morning, blowing fiercely." The "keshiki" of the second line echoes in "hageshiki," binding the changing sky and the violence of the wind together in sound as well.
The last line, "kogarashi no kaze," closes on a noun, naming at the end what has changed the look of the sky. The kogarashi is the strong wind of early winter that strips the leaves, and following the preceding poem's oaks grown sparse in the grove, this poem sings of the wind that scatters their leaves.
- Author
- Tsumori no Kunimoto
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- Winter showers, I thought, listening—but it was leaves falling all the while; and yet even so they wet the sleeves that I wear
- Of all times, just now, winter brings the Godless Month when the leaf-guard god is gone; thin and sparse the oaks have grown standing in the grove
- Over the high peak where I wait for the moon, the clouds have cleared away; surely it has a heart, this first winter shower
- In the Godless Month the leaves of all the trees have scattered, every one, and in the garden now the sound of wind is heard