かつ凍りかつは砕くる山川の
岩間にむせぶ暁の声
岩間にむせぶ暁の声
- Roma-ji
-
Katsu kōri katsu wa kudakuru yamagawa no iwama ni musebu akatsuki no koe
- English Translation
-
Freezing even as
it breaks apart again,
the mountain stream—
among the rocks it chokes and sobs,
its voice in the hour before dawn
- Meaning
- Freezing even as it breaks apart again, the mountain stream chokes and sobs among the rocks—such is its voice in the hour before dawn.
- Commentary
-
Book Six Winter Poems 631
Headnote: "Topic unknown."
This is the third poem of the ice sequence. It sings of the sound, in the hour before dawn, of a mountain stream that freezes and breaks apart again, choking and sobbing among the rocks. The headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author, "Master of the Empress Dowager's Household Toshinari," is Fujiwara no Shunzei. A son of the Provisional Middle Counselor Fujiwara no Toshitada, he rose to Senior Third Rank and Master of the Empress Dowager's Household, and took the Buddhist name Shakua when he entered holy orders. He compiled the Senzai Wakashū and was the father of Fujiwara no Teika.
The scene is a winter dawn, and the place is a mountain stream flowing among rocks.
The direct occasion is not recorded.
In the first line, "katsu kōri," "katsu" means "on the one hand," answering "katsu wa" in the second line to show two things happening at once.
The second line, "katsu wa kudakuru," means "and on the other breaks apart," describing ice, just forming, shattered by the force of the water.
The third line, "yamagawa no," means "of the stream flowing through the mountains."
The fourth line, "iwama ni musebu," means "choking and sobbing among the rocks." The muffled sound of the current held back by ice is likened to choked weeping.
The last line, "akatsuki no koe," closes on a noun, naming the sound of the river heard at dawn. The stream in which freezing and breaking happen at once is grasped not by sight but by its sound at dawn. Where the preceding poem knew of freezing by the silence of the drops, this poem hears the choked sound of water on the verge of freezing, setting side by side the ceasing of sound and the muffling of sound.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Shunzei
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- Thinking of the past, I wake deep in the night in a bed grown chill, and even my tears are freezing upon my sleeve
- The mountain drops that soaked one waiting there have lost their sound; on the lower leaves of the maki they now hang as icicles
- Vanishing, returning, wandering among the rocks, the foam upon the water finds a lodging for a while in the thin ice
- On my pillow, on my sleeves, my tears have frozen into ice, and to the dreams I cannot form the storm wind comes to call