見るままに冬は来にけり鴨のゐる
入江の汀薄氷りつつ
入江の汀薄氷りつつ
- Roma-ji
-
Miru mama ni fuyu wa kinikeri kamo no iru irie no migiwa usugōritsutsu
- English Translation
-
Even as I watch,
winter has come upon us;
where the wild ducks rest
the shore along the inlet
is glazing with thin ice
- Meaning
- Even as I watch, winter has arrived: along the shore of the inlet where the wild ducks rest, thin ice is slowly forming.
- Commentary
-
Book Six Winter Poems 638
Headnote: "From a hundred-poem sequence."
This is the tenth poem of the ice sequence. Even as the speaker watches, winter arrives, and the shore of the inlet where wild ducks rest begins to glaze with thin ice. According to the headnote, it is one poem from a hundred-poem sequence.
The author, "Princess Shikishi," is Princess Shikishi. A daughter of Emperor Go-Shirakawa, she served as Kamo Priestess and studied poetry under Fujiwara no Shunzei.
The scene is the beginning of winter, and the place is the shore of an inlet where wild ducks rest.
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, "miru mama ni," means "even as I watch," "before my very eyes."
The second line, "fuyu wa kinikeri," means "winter has come," with "keri" expressing the exclamation of awareness. The poem breaks after the second line.
The third line, "kamo no iru," means "where the wild ducks rest" and modifies "irie," inlet, in the fourth line.
The fourth line, "irie no migiwa," refers to the water's edge along the inlet.
The last line, "usugōritsutsu," means "glazing gradually with thin ice," with "tsutsu" expressing continuance. As she watches thin ice spread little by little from the shore, the speaker feels the arrival of winter, knowing the season through a change before her eyes. From the two poems on the Lady of Uji Bridge, the scene returns to ice, and the next poem, 639, also sings of Shiga Bay freezing outward from the shore.
- Author
- Princess Shokushi
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- The Lady of the Bridge has spread her single robe upon the narrow mat; her night of waiting all in vain, the dawn breaks at Uji
- Against the weir stakes the hesitating waves sound on as the night grows late; is she sleeping all alone, the Lady of Uji Bridge?
- Ah, Shiga Bay— from between the waves that draw ever farther off, frozen bright it rises, the moon that lingers into dawn
- Gazing all alone, the moon shining clear upon the ice of the pond— before I know, upon my sleeve it has come to shine as well