立ち濡るる山の雫も音絶えて
真木の下葉に垂氷しにけり
真木の下葉に垂氷しにけり
- Roma-ji
-
Tachinururu yama no shizuku mo oto taete maki no shitaba ni taruhi shinikeri
- English Translation
-
The mountain drops
that soaked one waiting there
have lost their sound;
on the lower leaves of the maki
they now hang as icicles
- Meaning
- The dripping of the mountain trees that once soaked those who stood waiting has fallen silent, for on the lower leaves of the maki the drops now hang as icicles.
- Commentary
-
Book Six Winter Poems 630
Headnote: "When I presented a hundred-poem sequence."
This is the second poem of the ice sequence. The dripping of the mountain trees that soaks one standing there has fallen silent, for the drops now hang as icicles on the lower leaves of the maki. According to the headnote, it was composed when a hundred-poem sequence was presented.
The author is not named in the original and continues from the preceding poem as Prince Shukaku. A son of Emperor Go-Shirakawa, he entered Ninnaji as its imperial abbot and was called the Omuro.
The scene is winter at its coldest, and the place is a mountain thick with maki trees.
The direct occasion is the presentation of a hundred-poem sequence. The headnote does not record for which gathering the hundred poems were composed.
The foundation poem is Prince Ōtsu's poem in Book Two of the Man'yōshū: "Ashihiki no yama no shizuku ni imo matsu to ware tachinurenu yama no shizuku ni" (Waiting for my love, I stood and was soaked by the dripping of the mountain trees, by the dripping of the mountain trees).
The first line, "tachinururu," means "soaking one who stands there," taking up "ware tachinurenu" from the foundation poem.
The second line, "yama no shizuku mo," means "even the drops falling from the mountain trees," taking "yama no shizuku" from the foundation poem as it stands.
The third line, "oto taete," means "their sound having ceased." That the drops have frozen and no longer fall is shown through the silence of their sound.
The fourth line, "maki no shitaba ni," means "on the lower leaves of cedar, cypress, and such fine trees."
The last line, "taruhi shinikeri," means "icicles have formed," with "ni" perfective and "keri" expressing the exclamation of awareness. The mountain drops that soaked the lover waiting in the foundation poem are recast as things that freeze into icicles in winter. From tears freezing on the sleeve in the preceding poem, the scene of ice widens to drops frozen on mountain trees.
- Author
- Cloistered Prince Shukaku
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- 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
- Freezing even as it breaks apart again, the mountain stream— among the rocks it chokes and sobs, its voice in the hour before dawn
- Vanishing, returning, wandering among the rocks, the foam upon the water finds a lodging for a while in the thin ice