寂しさに堪へたる人のまたもあれな
庵並べん冬の山里
庵並べん冬の山里
- Roma-ji
-
Sabishisa ni taetaru hito no mata mo are na iori naraben fuyu no yamazato
- English Translation
-
If only there were
another who could bear
such loneliness—
we would set our huts side by side
in this mountain village in winter
- Meaning
- If only there were someone else who could bear this loneliness as I do—we would build our huts side by side here in the winter mountain village.
- Commentary
-
Book Six Winter Poems 627
Headnote: "Topic unknown."
This is the seventeenth poem of the frost-and-withering sequence. The speaker wishes there were someone else who could bear the loneliness of a winter mountain village, so that they might build their huts side by side. The headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author, "Saigyō Hōshi," is Saigyō. His lay name was Satō Norikiyo, and he served Retired Emperor Toba as a warrior of the Northern Guard, but took holy orders at twenty-three, traveled through the provinces, and left the poetry collection Sankashū.
The scene is winter, and the place is a mountain village where a hut is built.
The direct occasion is not recorded.
The first line, "sabishisa ni," means "the loneliness of the winter mountain village."
The second line, "taetaru hito no," means "a person who bears it," with "taru" as the attributive form of the auxiliary of continuance "tari." The speaker seeks not someone who would flee loneliness but someone who lives on while bearing it.
The third line, "mata mo are na," means "would there were another," with "na" as a particle expressing a wish. It runs to six syllables, one over the count, and the poem breaks after the third line.
The fourth line, "iori naraben," means "we would set our huts side by side," with "n" as an auxiliary of intention.
The last line, "fuyu no yamazato," closes on a noun, naming the place at the end. The poem sings of a wavering heart that has sought solitude in a mountain village yet longs for a companion who bears the same loneliness. It moves from the withered landscapes of the poems before to the heart of one who dwells in a winter mountain village, and the next poem, 628, likewise sings of a heart that thinks of people in the capital from a distant place.
- Author
- Saigyō
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- In the land of Tsu, was the springtime of Naniwa only a dream? Over the withered leaves of reeds I hear the wind go by
- Winter has grown deep, so it seems, for at Naniwa Inlet not one green leaf is mingled any longer in the standing clumps of reeds
- On the eastern road the winter grasses by the way have grown so thick that not even a trace remains of the forgotten stream
- Thinking of the past, I wake deep in the night in a bed grown chill, and even my tears are freezing upon my sleeve