木枯らしの音に時雨を聞き分かで
紅葉に濡るる袂とぞ見る
紅葉に濡るる袂とぞ見る
- Roma-ji
-
Kogarashi no oto ni shigure o kikiwakade momiji ni nururu tamoto to zo miru
- English Translation
-
In the withering wind's roar
I cannot tell apart
the winter showers,
and think my sleeves are wet
from the crimson leaves
- Meaning
- In the roar of the withering wind I cannot make out the sound of the winter showers, and so I take my wet sleeves to be wet from the crimson leaves.
- Commentary
-
Book Six Winter Poems 575
Headnote: "Topic unknown."
This is the sixth poem of the winter-showers sequence. Unable to make out the showers through the roar of the withering wind, the speaker takes his wet sleeves to be wet from the crimson leaves. The headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author, "Prince Tomohira, Minister of Central Affairs," is Prince Tomohira. A son of Emperor Murakami, he served as Minister of Central Affairs and was known as the Later Prince of Central Affairs. He excelled in poetry and learning.
The scene is early winter with the withering wind blowing, and the place is somewhere the crimson leaves are falling.
The direct occasion is not recorded.
The first line, "kogarashi no," refers to the strong wind of early winter that scatters the leaves. It is the same wind as "kogarashi no kaze" in the last line of 569 in this book.
The second line, "oto ni shigure o," means "the showers within the sound of the withering wind."
The third line, "kikiwakade," means "unable to tell apart by ear," with "de" as a negative conjunctive particle.
The fourth line, "momiji ni nururu," means "wet from the crimson leaves." Though it was the showers that wet the sleeves, the speaker, not noticing their sound, thinks the leaves have wet them.
The last line, "tamoto to zo miru," is a kakari-musubi construction in which "zo" is answered by the attributive form of the verb "miru." Poem 567 in this book sang of being wet even by leaves while knowing that the sound taken for showers was leaves; this poem instead takes sleeves wet from showers to be wet from leaves, singing of the same confusion of showers and leaves from the opposite side.
- Author
- Prince Tomohira
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- Clouds have cleared, and still winter showers fall at the brushwood door— dew beneath the pines swept down by mountain wind
- In the Godless Month the winter showers must be falling; on Mount Saho the masaki vine deepens in its color
- Winter showers fall, their sound is heard, and yet the black bamboo— why, through all its nodes and years, does its color never change?
- Winter showers' rain could not dye them after all— in Yamashiro, in the Evergreen Grove, the lower leaves of the maki pines