Ajirogi ni isayou nami no oto fukete hitori ya nenuru uji no hashihime

English Translation

Against the weir stakes
the hesitating waves sound on
as the night grows late;
is she sleeping all alone,
the Lady of Uji Bridge?

Meaning

As the night grows late, the waves lingering against the stakes of the fish weir sound on and on—is she sleeping all alone, the Lady of Uji Bridge?

Commentary

Book Six Winter Poems 637

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "On the painting of the Uji River on the sliding panels of the Saishō Shitennō-in."
This is the ninth poem of the ice sequence. The word "ice" does not appear in it, however; as the waves lingering against the weir stakes of the Uji River sound deep into the night, the speaker wonders whether the Lady of Uji Bridge sleeps alone. The headnote continues from the preceding poem, and this poem was composed for the same painting of the Uji River on the panels of the Saishō Shitennō-in.
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 late on a winter night, and the place is the Uji River in Yamashiro Province, where fish weirs are set.
As with the preceding poem, the direct occasion is composition of a poem to accompany the painting of the famous Uji River on the sliding panels of the Saishō Shitennō-in.
The upper verse draws on Kakinomoto no Hitomaro's poem in Book Three of the Man'yōshū, "Mononofu no yaso Ujigawa no ajirogi ni isayou nami no yukue shirazu mo" (The waves that linger at the weir stakes of the Uji River—who knows where they go?), and the lower verse on the anonymous Kokin Wakashū poem "Samushiro ni koromo katashiki koyoi mo ya ware o matsuramu Uji no hashihime." The fish weirs of the Uji River were set in winter to catch hio, young sweetfish.

The first line, "ajirogi ni," means "against the stakes driven into the river to hold the fish weir."
The second line, "isayou nami no," means "of the waves that hesitate, surging and stopping." It describes the current held back and slowed by the weir stakes.
The third line, "oto fukete," means "the sound deepening as the night grows late."
The fourth line, "hitori ya nenuru," is a kakari-musubi construction in which the interrogative particle "ya" is answered by "nenuru," the attributive form of the verb "nu," to sleep, meaning "does she sleep alone?" The poem breaks after the fourth line, in inverted relation to the last line.
The last line, "uji no hashihime," closes on a noun, the same last line as 611 in this book. Where the preceding poem sang of the Lady at dawn after her night of waiting ended in vain, this poem thinks of the Lady sleeping alone amid the sound of the waves late at night, so that two poems for the same painted Uji River distinguish the late night from the dawn.

Author

Jien

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other