Shimo sayuru yamada no kuro no murasusuki karu hito nashimi nokoru koro kana

English Translation

Where the frost is chill,
on the ridges of the mountain fields
the clumps of pampas grass,
with no one there to cut them,
still remain in these days

Meaning

On the ridges between the mountain rice fields, where the frost lies chill, the clumps of pampas grass remain uncut these days, for there is no one left to cut them.

Commentary

Book Six Winter Poems 618

Headnote: "From a hundred-poem sequence."
This is the eighth poem of the frost-and-withering sequence. On the ridges of mountain rice fields where frost lies chill, clumps of pampas grass remain with no one to cut them. According to the headnote, it is one poem from a hundred-poem sequence.
The author, "Former Archbishop Jien," is Jien. A son of the Regent Fujiwara no Tadamichi, he served four times as Tendai Abbot and wrote the historical work Gukanshō.
The scene is winter with chill frost, and the place is the ridges between rice fields in the mountains.
The direct occasion is the composition of a hundred-poem sequence. The headnote does not record which hundred-poem sequence it was.

The first line, "shimo sayuru," means "where frost lies chill" and modifies "yamada," mountain fields, in the second line.
In the second line, "yamada no kuro no," "kuro" means the raised ridge between rice fields.
The third line, "murasusuki," refers to pampas grass growing in clumps.
The fourth line, "karu hito nashimi," means "because there is no one to cut it," with "... mi" expressing cause or reason.
The last line, "nokoru koro kana," closes with the exclamatory particle "kana." In the pampas grass left uncut amid the frost, the poem sings of the loneliness of mountain fields beyond the reach of human hands. Where 606 in this book sang of beds laid bare in a harvested field, this poem sings of grass left uncut, pairing what is cut with what is left behind. From the preceding poem's field of grass withered past recognition, it moves to pampas grass that remains even as it withers.

Author

Jien

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other