秋篠や外山の里や時雨るらん
生駒の岳に雲のかかれる
生駒の岳に雲のかかれる
- Roma-ji
-
Akishino ya toyama no sato ya shigururan ikoma no take ni kumo no kakareru
- English Translation
-
Akishino—
in the village by the foothills
are the showers falling now?
Over the peak of Ikoma
the clouds are hanging low
- Meaning
- Are the winter showers falling now in the village of Akishino at the foot of the hills? Clouds are hanging over the peak of Ikoma.
- Commentary
-
Book Six Winter Poems 585
Headnote: "Topic unknown."
This is the sixteenth poem of the winter-showers sequence. Seeing clouds hanging over the peak of Ikoma, the speaker infers that the showers may be falling in the village of Akishino at the foot of the hills. The headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author, "Saigyō Hōshi," is Saigyō. His lay name was Satō Norikiyo, and he served Retired Emperor Toba as a warrior of the Northern Guard, but took holy orders at twenty-three, traveled through the provinces, and left the poetry collection Sankashū.
The scene is the season of winter showers, and the place is somewhere with a view of Akishino and Mount Ikoma in Yamato Province.
The direct occasion is not recorded.
The first line, "akishino ya," names a place in Yamato Province, around present-day Akishino-chō in Nara City. "Ya" is an interjectory particle that smooths the rhythm and calls up the place name with feeling.
In the second line, "toyama no sato ya," "toyama" means the hills near human settlements, as opposed to the deep mountains. "Ya" is an interrogative particle corresponding to "ran" in the third line.
The third line, "shigururan," means "are the showers falling now?" with "ran" as an auxiliary of present conjecture about something out of sight. The poem breaks after the third line, and the lower verse gives the grounds in an inverted structure.
The fourth line, "ikoma no take ni," refers to Mount Ikoma, rising on the border of Yamato and Kawachi Provinces.
The last line, "kumo no kakareru," means "the clouds are hanging," with "ru" as the attributive form of the auxiliary of continuance "ri," and closing on the attributive form leaves a lingering resonance. Taking the clouds on a distant mountain as grounds for inferring showers in an unseen village, it is, like 574 in this book, which inferred showers from the color of the vine, a poem that knows the showers from something visible. The next poem, 586, sings of the showers that alternate between sun and cloud without any fixed pattern.
- Author
- Saigyō
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- In this world of ours still I linger on, like rain; the showers keep falling, and like the moon between the clouds I think, "Now let me go forth"—and yet
- Of all times, just now, drifting clouds hang in the gaze of my long rains of brooding, and my sleeves become as one with them, wet with showers on and on
- Now clear, now clouded, the showers keep no steady course, and yet the one that has fallen quite, grown old, has been none other than myself
- Now once again, though no leaves are scattering, something passes for the showers— falling alone, growing old, the wind in the garden pines