神無月時雨降るらし佐保山の
まさきのかづら色まさりゆく
まさきのかづら色まさりゆく
- Roma-ji
-
Kannazuki shigure fururashi sahoyama no masaki no kazura iro masariyuku
- English Translation
-
In the Godless Month
the winter showers must be falling;
on Mount Saho
the masaki vine
deepens in its color
- Meaning
- The showers of the Godless Month must be falling, for on Mount Saho the masaki vine grows ever deeper in color.
- Commentary
-
Book Six Winter Poems 574
Headnote: "For the Poetry Contest of the Empress in the Reign of Kanpyō."
This is the fifth poem of the winter-showers sequence. Seeing the masaki vine on Mount Saho deepen in color, the speaker infers that the showers must be falling. According to the headnote, it was composed for the poetry contest of the empress in the Kanpyō era.
The author is given as "anonymous," and the name is not recorded.
The scene is the Godless Month, and the place is Mount Saho in Yamato Province.
The direct occasion is the Poetry Contest of the Empress in the Reign of Kanpyō, held by Princess Hanshi, mother of Emperor Uda, during his Kanpyō era.
The first line, "Kannazuki," is another name for the tenth lunar month. It shares its first line with 571 in this book, marking the time of early winter.
In the second line, "shigure fururashi," "rashi" is an auxiliary that infers from evidence. Taking the visible color of the vine as evidence, the speaker infers that showers have fallen, and the poem breaks after the second line.
The third line, "sahoyama no," names a poetic place in Yamato Province, a mountain north of the Nara capital. It was also sung as a place famed for autumn leaves.
The fourth line, "masaki no kazura," is a climbing vine identified with the Asian star jasmine. The masaki vine sung as something scattering in 557 and 561 of this book is sung here as something deepening in color.
The last line, "iro masariyuku," means "its color grows ever deeper." "Masaki" and "masari" echo each other in sound. Resting on the common notion that showers dye the leaves, the poem infers the unseen showers from the color of the vine. Where the preceding poem revealed that what seemed to be showers was really dew, this poem stands beside it as one that knows the showers from a color it can see.
- Author
- Unknown Poet
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- On the brushwood door the light of the setting sun still falls, and yet why do the winter showers fall on this mountainside?
- Clouds have cleared, and still winter showers fall at the brushwood door— dew beneath the pines swept down by mountain wind
- In the withering wind's roar I cannot tell apart the winter showers, and think my sleeves are wet from the crimson leaves
- Winter showers fall, their sound is heard, and yet the black bamboo— why, through all its nodes and years, does its color never change?