Tsuki zo sumu tare ka wa koko ni kinokuni ya fukiage no chidori hitori naku nari

English Translation

The moon shines clear—
yet who would come here to see?
In the land of Kii
a plover of Fukiage
is crying all alone

Meaning

The moon shines clear, yet who would come here? No one. On the beach of Fukiage in the land of Kii, a single plover cries alone.

Commentary

Book Six Winter Poems 647

Headnote: "When I presented fifty poems."
This is the seventh poem of the plover sequence. On the beach of Fukiage in Kii, where the moon shines clear, no one comes, and a plover cries all alone. According to the headnote, it was composed when a set of fifty poems was presented.
The author, "the Regent and Chancellor," is Fujiwara no Yoshitsune. A son of the Regent Kujō Kanezane, he rose to Regent and Chancellor and wrote the Japanese preface to the Shin Kokin Wakashū.
The scene is a night of clear moonlight, and the place is the beach of Fukiage in Kii Province.
The direct occasion is the presentation of a fifty-poem set. The headnote does not record for which gathering the fifty poems were composed.

The first line, "tsuki zo sumu," is a kakari-musubi construction in which "zo" is answered by the attributive form of the verb "sumu," meaning "the moon shines clear." The poem breaks after the first line.
In the second line, "tare ka wa koko ni," "ka wa" is rhetorical: "who would come here? No one."
In the third line, "kinokuni ya," "ki" carries both "come," running on from the second line, and the "Ki" of the place name Kii. "Ya" is an interjectory particle.
The fourth line, "fukiage no chidori," refers to the plovers of the beach of Fukiage in Kii, the same beach as in the preceding poem.
The last line, "hitori naku nari," means "a plover is heard crying alone," with "nari" as an auxiliary inferring from sound. On a moonlit beach where no one comes, the plover too cries alone, and the poem layers the solitude of person and bird. Where the preceding poem sang of the beach plovers of Fukiage at a midnight of rising waves, this poem sings of a plover of Fukiage in still moonlight, setting the same beach in two scenes, waves and moon. Where 644 in this book sang of beach plovers flying wing to wing, here a plover crying "alone" is sung.

Author

Fujiwara no Yoshitsune

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other