我が門の刈田の寝屋に臥す鴫の
床あらはなる冬の夜の月
床あらはなる冬の夜の月
- Roma-ji
-
Waga kado no karita no neya ni fusu shigi no toko arawa naru fuyu no yo no tsuki
- English Translation
-
Before my gate
in the reaped field where they lie,
the snipe in their beds—
laid bare now to its light,
the moon of the winter night
- Meaning
- In the harvested field before my gate, where the snipe lie down to sleep, the winter moon lays their beds bare in its light.
- Commentary
-
Book Six Winter Poems 606
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the sixteenth poem of the winter-moon sequence. In the harvested field before the gate, the beds of the snipe lying there are laid bare by the winter moon. The headnote continues from the preceding poem with no topic given, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author, "Inpumon'in no Tayū," is Inpumon'in no Tayū. A daughter of Fujiwara no Nobunari, she was a lady-in-waiting to Inpumon'in, Princess Ryōshi, a daughter of Emperor Go-Shirakawa.
The scene is a winter night, and the place is the harvested field spreading before the gate of her dwelling.
The direct occasion is not recorded.
The first line, "waga kado no," means "before my gate."
The second line, "karita no neya ni," means "in the harvested field as a bedchamber." "Neya" means a bedchamber, likening the snipe's roost to a human sleeping place.
The third line, "fusu shigi no," means "of the snipe lying there." As "the autumn dusk at a marsh where snipe rise" in 362 of Book Four shows, snipe were sung as an image of autumn, but here the snipe are sung lying in a winter field.
The fourth line, "toko arawa naru," means "their beds are laid bare." The snipe's beds, hidden while the rice stood tall, are exposed once it is cut and lie open to the moonlight.
The last line, "fuyu no yo no tsuki," closes on a noun, naming what lays the beds bare. Where the preceding poem sang of the garden moon reaching every corner once the leaves had fallen, this poem sings of the moon over a field where nothing is left to hide once the rice is cut, carrying the pattern of exposure to moonlight after the covering is lost from garden to field, from leaves to rice.
- Author
- Inpumon-in no Taifu
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- Has it swept away every trace of autumn's color, that now it blows against the laurel of the moon in the far heavens, the withering wind?
- The wind grows cold, and night by night the leaves thin out until the sky shows through; leaving no shadowed corner, the moonlight in the garden
- In the winter-withered grove, upon the frost that lies over the rotting leaves, the moonlight has fallen— oh, the coldness of that light!
- Unable to bear the cold, I wake, and on my pillow see the light— on a night of deepest frost, the moon that lingers into dawn