Shigure furu oto wa suredomo kuretake no nado yo to tomo ni iro mo kawaranu

English Translation

Winter showers fall,
their sound is heard, and yet
the black bamboo—
why, through all its nodes and years,
does its color never change?

Meaning

I hear the sound of the winter showers falling, and yet why is it that the bamboo never changes its color, through all the ages?

Commentary

Book Six Winter Poems 576

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the seventh poem of the winter-showers sequence. The speaker hears the showers falling and asks why the bamboo never changes its color. The headnote continues from the preceding poem with no topic given, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author, "Middle Counselor Kanesuke," is Fujiwara no Kanesuke. A son of Fujiwara no Toshimoto, he rose to Junior Third Rank and Middle Counselor and was called the Embankment Middle Counselor because his residence stood on the embankment of the Kamo River. He was the great-grandfather of Murasaki Shikibu and one of the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals.
The scene is early winter as the showers fall, and the place is where bamboo grows.
The direct occasion is not recorded.

The first line, "shigure furu," means "where showers fall" and modifies "oto," sound, in the second line.
In the second line, "oto wa suredomo," "domo" is a concessive conjunctive particle: "though the sound is heard." Showers were held to dye the leaves, and the speaker knows by the sound that they are falling.
The third line, "kuretake no," refers to kuretake, a kind of bamboo with many nodes, and leads as the subject to the last line.
In the fourth line, "nado yo to tomo ni," "nado" means "why." "Yo" carries both "yo," the section of bamboo between nodes, and "yo," the world or age, so that "yo to tomo ni" comes to mean "forever." The sense of bamboo sections resounds as an associated word for the bamboo.
The last line, "iro mo kawaranu," means "why does its color not change?" and closes with "nu," the attributive form of the negative auxiliary "zu." Against the common notion that showers dye the leaves, the poem brings forward the bamboo that will not be dyed and asks why. The next poem, 577, likewise sings of showers unable to dye the lower leaves of the maki in the Grove of Tokiwa, so evergreen trees untouched by the showers appear in succession.

Author

Fujiwara no Kanesuke

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other