Yū sareba shiokaze koshite michinoku no noda no tamagawa chidori naku nari

English Translation

When evening comes,
the sea wind blowing over,
in far Michinoku
at the Jewel River of Noda
the plovers are crying

Meaning

When evening comes and the wind from the sea blows across, I hear plovers crying at the Jewel River of Noda in far Michinoku.

Commentary

Book Six Winter Poems 643

Headnote: "Composed when I went down to the province of Michinoku."
This is the third poem of the plover sequence. When evening comes and the sea wind blows across, plovers are heard crying at the Jewel River of Noda in Michinoku. According to the headnote, it was composed when the poet went down to the province of Michinoku.
The author, "Nōin Hōshi," is Nōin. His lay name was Tachibana no Nagayasu; he took holy orders when young and traveled the provinces visiting famous poetic places. He wrote the poetic handbook Nōin Utamakura.
The scene is evening, and the place is the Jewel River of Noda in Michinoku Province.
The direct occasion is hearing plovers at the Jewel River of Noda on a journey down to Michinoku.

The first line, "yū sareba," means "when evening comes."
The second line, "shiokaze koshite," means "the wind from the sea blowing across."
The third line, "michinoku no," names the province where the Jewel River of Noda lies.
The fourth line, "noda no tamagawa," names a poetic place in Michinoku Province, a river flowing around present-day Shiogama in Miyagi Prefecture.
In the last line, "chidori naku nari," "nari" is an auxiliary that infers from sound, and the line repeats the last line of 641 in this book. The poem sings of plovers' cries carried on the evening sea wind; the poet, who actually traveled to Michinoku, catches the scene of a distant poetic place through sound. The setting moves from the Saho river shallows of Yamato in the preceding poem to the Jewel River in faraway Michinoku, continuing from plovers on river shallows to plovers on a river near the sea.

Author

Nōin

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other