ひとり見る池の氷に澄む月の
やがて袖にも映りぬるかな
やがて袖にも映りぬるかな
- Roma-ji
-
Hitori miru ike no kōri ni sumu tsuki no yagate sode ni mo utsurinuru kana
- English Translation
-
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
- Meaning
- The moon I gaze at alone, shining clear on the ice of the pond, has come before I knew it to shine upon my sleeve as well.
- Commentary
-
Book Six Winter Poems 640
Headnote: "When Prince Shukaku had fifty poems composed."
This is the twelfth poem of the ice sequence. The moon shining clear on the ice of the pond, gazed at alone, comes to shine upon the speaker's sleeve as well. According to the headnote, it is one of a set of fifty poems that Prince Shukaku had poets compose.
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 night, and the place is beside a frozen pond.
The direct occasion is the presentation of a fifty-poem set that Prince Shukaku had poets compose.
The first line, "hitori miru," means "gazing alone" and modifies "ike," pond, in the second line, setting out a solitary state at the start.
The second line, "ike no kōri ni," means "on the frozen surface of the pond."
The third line, "sumu tsuki no," means "the moonlight shining clear."
The fourth line, "yagate sode ni mo," means "straightaway upon my sleeve as well," with "yagate" meaning "as it is," "at once."
The last line, "utsurinuru kana," means "it has come to be reflected," with "nuru" as the attributive form of the perfective auxiliary "nu" and "kana" an exclamatory particle. That the moon reflected on the pond's ice is reflected on the sleeve as well shows that tears shed in the loneliness of gazing alone have wet the sleeve, and the moon is reflected in those tears. From the lake moon rising frozen bright in the preceding poem, the poem moves to the moon reflected in the pond's ice and in the tears on the sleeve, overlaying ice and tears as things that mirror the moon.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Shunzei
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- Even as I watch, winter has come upon us; where the wild ducks rest the shore along the inlet is glazing with thin ice
- Ah, Shiga Bay— from between the waves that draw ever farther off, frozen bright it rises, the moon that lingers into dawn
- As the jet-black night deepens and wears on, where the hisagi grow along the clear river shallows the plovers are crying
- The way ahead of me, though the night has grown late, the Saho river shallows where the plovers are crying are hard to pass by