冬枯れの森の朽葉の霜の上に
落ちたる月の影の寒けさ
落ちたる月の影の寒けさ
- Roma-ji
-
Fuyugare no mori no kuchiba no shimo no ue ni ochitaru tsuki no kage no samukesa
- English Translation
-
In the winter-withered grove,
upon the frost that lies
over the rotting leaves,
the moonlight has fallen—
oh, the coldness of that light!
- Meaning
- In the winter-withered grove, the moonlight falls upon the frost that covers the rotting leaves—how cold that light is!
- Commentary
-
Book Six Winter Poems 607
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the seventeenth poem of the winter-moon sequence. It sings of the cold of the moonlight falling upon the frost that lies over the rotting leaves of a winter-withered grove. The headnote continues from the preceding poem with no topic given, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author, "Kiyosuke Ason," is Fujiwara no Kiyosuke. A son of the Master of the Western Capital Office Fujiwara no Akisuke, he was a poet of the Rokujō Fujiwara house and wrote the poetic treatises Fukuro Zōshi and Ōgishō.
The scene is a winter night, and the place is a winter-withered grove.
The direct occasion is not recorded.
The first line, "fuyugare no," means "withered by winter."
The second line, "mori no kuchiba no," means "of the leaves that have fallen and rotted in the grove." The leaves that scattered in the falling-leaves sequence of this book have here become rotting leaves.
The third line, "shimo no ue ni," means "upon the frost lying on the rotting leaves" and runs to six syllables, one over the count. Repeating "no" from the second line into the third, it narrows the scene step by step: grove, rotting leaves, frost.
The fourth line, "ochitaru tsuki no," means "of the moon that has fallen." The moonlight is described as "falling" upon the frost.
The last line, "kage no samukesa," means "oh, the coldness of the light," closing on the noun "samukesa." Layering cold things—withered grove, rotting leaves, frost, moon—the poem makes cold itself its subject. Following the moon over the harvested field in the preceding poem, it sings of the winter moon falling on ground bared of its covering, and it answers "kage zo samukeki" in the last line of 609 in this book in setting the coldness of moonlight in the last line.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Kiyosuke
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- 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
- 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
- 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
- Frost binds on the sleeve I spread alone to sleep, and nothing thaws— on this sleepless night the moon, how cold its light appears!