音羽山さやかに見ゆる白雪を
明けぬと告ぐる鳥の声かな
明けぬと告ぐる鳥の声かな
- Roma-ji
-
Otowayama sayaka ni miyuru shirayuki o akenu to tsuguru tori no koe kana
- English Translation
-
On Mount Otowa
the white snow shows so clearly
that the cock mistakes it,
crying out that dawn has come—
ah, the voice of the bird!
- Meaning
- The white snow on Mount Otowa shows so clearly that the cock, taking it for daybreak, cries out that dawn has come.
- Commentary
-
Book Six Winter Poems 668
Headnote: "When the courtiers presented poems on the theme 'Gazing at Snow on the Mountain at Dawn.'"
This is the twelfth poem of the snow sequence. It sings of a cock crying out that dawn has come, mistaking for daybreak the brightness of the white snow shining clearly on Mount Otowa. According to the headnote, it was composed when the courtiers presented poems on the topic "Gazing at Snow on the Mountain at Dawn."
The author, given as "a poem of Retired Emperor Takakura," is Emperor Takakura. A son of Emperor Go-Shirakawa, he took Tokuko, daughter of Taira no Kiyomori, as his empress.
The scene is the dark hour before dawn, and the place is where Mount Otowa can be seen.
The direct occasion is the courtiers' presentation of poems on the topic "Gazing at Snow on the Mountain at Dawn."
The first line, "otowayama," names a mountain on the border of Yamashiro and Ōmi Provinces, long sung as a poetic place.
The second line, "sayaka ni miyuru," means "clearly visible." In the darkness before dawn, only the snow on the mountain shows bright and white.
The third line, "shirayuki o," means "the white snow of Mount Otowa."
The fourth line, "akenu to tsuguru," means "announcing that dawn has come," with "nu" as a perfective auxiliary. It speaks of mistaking the brightness of the snow for the light of daybreak.
The last line, "tori no koe kana," closes with the exclamatory particle "kana." "Tori," bird, is the cock that announces the dawn. Through the conceit of a cock crowing because it mistakes the white of the mountain snow for daybreak, the poem shows how bright the snow is. It renders the topic "Gazing at Snow on the Mountain at Dawn" not through the eyes of the one gazing but through the cock's cry. Following the preceding poem, which heard the sound of snow on waking late at night, this poem shows the brightness of snow at dawn through the cock's cry, and time moves on from night to dawn.
- Author
- Emperor Takakura
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- Upon White Mountain is the snow of years gone by piling up again? The sleeve I spread alone at midnight has turned so bitterly cold
- Before the day has dawned upon my bed where I lie waking there comes a sound— the bamboo by the fence snapping beneath the snow
- In the mountain village is the path now lost to sight? For together with the scattered crimson leaves the snow has fallen there
- What would you have me do with all this loneliness, that on the hillside the oak leaves droop so low beneath the falling snow?