時雨の雨染めかねてけり山城の
ときはの杜の槙の下葉は
ときはの杜の槙の下葉は
- Roma-ji
-
Shigure no ame somekanetekeri yamashiro no tokiwa no mori no maki no shitaba wa
- English Translation
-
Winter showers' rain
could not dye them after all—
in Yamashiro,
in the Evergreen Grove,
the lower leaves of the maki pines
- Meaning
- Even the rain of the winter showers could not dye them—the lower leaves of the maki trees in the Grove of Tokiwa, the Evergreen Grove of Yamashiro.
- Commentary
-
Book Six Winter Poems 577
Headnote: "On passing the Grove of Tokiwa around the tenth month."
This is the eighth poem of the winter-showers sequence. Even the rain of the winter showers could not dye the lower leaves of the maki in the Grove of Tokiwa in Yamashiro. According to the headnote, it was composed on passing the Grove of Tokiwa around the tenth month.
The author, "Nōin Hōshi," is Nōin. His lay name was Tachibana no Nagayasu; he took holy orders when young and traveled the provinces visiting famous poetic places. He wrote the poetic handbook Nōin Utamakura.
The scene is around the tenth lunar month, and the place is the Grove of Tokiwa in Yamashiro Province.
The direct occasion is passing the Grove of Tokiwa around the tenth month.
The first line, "shigure no ame," means "the rain that is the winter showers" and runs to six syllables, one over the count.
The second line, "somekanetekeri," means "it could not dye them after all." "Kane" adds the sense of trying and failing, and "keri" expresses the exclamation of sudden awareness. The poem breaks after the second line.
The third line, "yamashiro no," names the province where the Grove of Tokiwa lies.
The fourth line, "tokiwa no mori no," names a poetic place in Yamashiro Province, a grove that stood around Tokiwa in present-day Ukyō Ward, Kyoto. The place name "Tokiwa" also carries "tokiwa," evergreen and unchanging in color, and the very name holds the reason the leaves do not change even in the showers.
The last line, "maki no shitaba wa," means "the lower leaves of the maki," naming the subject at the end in inversion from the second line. Following the bamboo of the preceding poem, it sings of an evergreen tree that the showers cannot dye. Where the preceding poem asked why the color does not change, this poem takes the form of giving an answer through the name "Tokiwa."
- Author
- Nōin
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- 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?
- Winter being young, I thought them only showers, and yet they did not cease— for they were also the tears of old age
- In a brushwood hut where the gaps let in the sky, sleeping on a journey, wet with winter showers, my robe of the night