Ubatama no yo no fukeyukeba hisagi ouru kiyoki kawara ni chidori naku nari

English Translation

As the jet-black night
deepens and wears on,
where the hisagi grow
along the clear river shallows
the plovers are crying

Meaning

As the dark night deepens, I hear the plovers crying on the clear river shallows where the hisagi trees grow.

Commentary

Book Six Winter Poems 641

Headnote: "Topic unknown."
This is the first poem of the plover sequence. As the night deepens, the cries of plovers are heard on the clear river shallows where hisagi trees grow. The headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author, "Akahito," is Yamabe no Akahito. A court poet of the Nara period who excelled in poems of natural scenery, he was later ranked with Kakinomoto no Hitomaro as a Sage of Poetry and is one of the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals.
The scene is late at night, and the place is clear river shallows where hisagi trees grow.
The direct occasion is not recorded.
In Book Six of the Man'yōshū this poem appears as an envoy to a long poem by Yamabe no Akahito composed on an imperial excursion to the detached palace at Yoshino, where its last line reads "chidori shiba naku," the plovers cry again and again.

The first line, "ubatama no," is a pillow word modifying "yo," night.
The second line, "yo no fukeyukeba," means "as the night wears on," with "ba" attached to the perfective form expressing an established condition.
The third line, "hisagi ouru," means "where hisagi trees grow." Hisagi is the name of a tree that grows along riverbanks.
The fourth line, "kiyoki kawara ni," means "on the clear river shallows."
In the last line, "chidori naku nari," "nari" is an auxiliary that infers from sound, telling that the plovers' cries are heard in the darkness. The poem sings of a pure, still scene in which only the plovers' cries ring out in the silence of late night, and it stands at the head of the plover sequence. From the moon on the pond that closed the ice sequence, it turns to plovers on the river shallows at night, and the next poem, 642, likewise sings of plovers crying on the river shallows late at night.

Author

Yamabe no Akahito

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other