Kimi kozu wa hitori ya nenan sasa no ha no miyama mo soyo ni sayagu shimoyo o

English Translation

If you do not come,
must I sleep alone tonight,
while the bamboo grass
rustles through the deep mountains
on this night of frost?

Meaning

If you do not come, must I sleep alone through this frosty night, while the bamboo grass rustles all through the deep mountains?

Commentary

Book Six Winter Poems 616

Headnote: "When I presented a hundred-poem sequence in the reign of Retired Emperor Sutoku."
This is the sixth poem of the frost-and-withering sequence. On a frosty night when the bamboo grass rustles through the deep mountains, the speaker asks whether, if the beloved does not come, she must sleep alone. According to the headnote, it was composed when a hundred-poem sequence was presented in the reign of Retired Emperor Sutoku.
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 frosty winter night, and the place is a dwelling near mountains where bamboo grass rustles.
The direct occasion is the presentation of a hundred-poem sequence commissioned in the reign of Retired Emperor Sutoku.
As with the preceding poem, the foundation poem is Kakinomoto no Hitomaro's poem in Book Two of the Man'yōshū: "Sasa no ha wa miyama mo saya ni sayagedomo ware wa imo omou wakarekinureba."

The first line, "kimi kozu wa," means "if you do not come," with "zu wa" expressing a negative supposition.
In the second line, "hitori ya nenan," "ya" is an interrogative particle, and "nan" combines the irrealis form of the perfective auxiliary "nu" with the conjectural auxiliary "mu," meaning "must I sleep alone?" The poem breaks after the second line, in inverted relation to the lower verse.
The third line, "sasa no ha no," takes up "sasa no ha wa," the first line of the foundation poem.
The fourth line, "miyama mo soyo ni," means "rustling through the whole of the deep mountains," taking up "miyama mo saya ni" from the foundation poem's second line. Where the preceding poem used "saya ni" as it stands, this poem uses "soyo ni" and sets "sayagu" in the last line.
The last line, "sayagu shimoyo o," means "through this rustling frosty night," closing on a noun followed by "o." Drawing the foundation poem's "sayagedomo" in as "sayagu," it shifts the foundation poem's longing for a wife into the heart of one who sleeps alone waiting for a lover who does not come. Where the preceding poem drew a winter landscape from the same foundation poem, this one keeps its love and sings of sleeping alone on a frosty night, and it connects with the Lady of Uji Bridge in 611 of this book through the heart of one who sleeps alone on a night of frost.

Author

Fujiwara no Kiyosuke

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other