冴えわびて覚むる枕に影見れば
霜深き夜の有明の月
霜深き夜の有明の月
- Roma-ji
-
Saewabite samuru makura ni kage mireba shimo fukaki yo no ariake no tsuki
- English Translation
-
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
- Meaning
- Waking because I could no longer bear the cold, I saw the light upon my pillow: the moon lingering into dawn on a night of deep frost.
- Commentary
-
Book Six Winter Poems 608
Headnote: "For the Poetry Contest in Fifteen Hundred Rounds."
This is the eighteenth poem of the winter-moon sequence. Seeing the light on her pillow after the cold has woken her, the speaker finds it is the dawn moon on a night of deep frost. According to the headnote, it was composed for the Poetry Contest in Fifteen Hundred Rounds.
The author, "Daughter of Toshinari, Master of the Empress Dowager's Household," is Shunzei's Daughter. A granddaughter of Fujiwara no Shunzei, she was adopted as his daughter. She became the wife of Minamoto no Michitomo and was active in Retired Emperor Go-Toba's poetic circle.
The scene is before dawn on a winter night of deep frost, and the place is beside the pillow in a bedchamber.
The direct occasion is the Poetry Contest in Fifteen Hundred Rounds held by Retired Emperor Go-Toba.
The first line, "saewabite," means "unable to bear the bitter cold." "Saeru" means to grow chill, and "wabu" adds the sense of being unable to endure.
The second line, "samuru makura ni," means "on the pillow where I wake," showing that sleep has been broken by the cold.
In the third line, "kage mireba," "kage" means moonlight, and "ba" attached to the perfective form expresses an established condition: "when I looked."
The fourth line, "shimo fukaki yo no," means "of a night of deep frost." From the moonlight on the pillow, the speaker knows how deep the frost lies outside.
The last line, "ariake no tsuki," closes on a noun, the same last line as 594 and 595 in this book. Beginning from the bodily sensation of waking in the cold, the poem widens its gaze from moonlight on the pillow to frost outside to the dawn moon in the sky, carrying the cold of moonlight on frost in the preceding poem onto the pillow of one who wakes.
- Author
- Shunzei's Daughter
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- 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
- In the winter-withered grove, upon the frost that lies over the rotting leaves, the moonlight has fallen— oh, the coldness of that light!
- Frost binds on the sleeve I spread alone to sleep, and nothing thaws— on this sleepless night the moon, how cold its light appears!
- Remembering the dew where once it came to lodge and left its light, it seeks the traces in the frost— the moon on the field of reeds