Koma tomete sode uchiharau kage mo nashi sano no watari no yuki no yūgure

English Translation

No shelter to rein
my horse and brush the snow
from off my sleeves—
at the ford of Sano
evening in the snow

Meaning

There is no shelter where I might stop my horse and brush the snow from my sleeves—only the ford of Sano at dusk in the falling snow.

Commentary

Book Six Winter Poems 671

Headnote: "When I presented a hundred-poem sequence."
This is the fifteenth poem of the snow sequence. At the ford of Sano on a snowy evening there is not even shelter where a traveler might stop his horse and brush the snow from his sleeves. According to the headnote, it was composed when a hundred-poem sequence was presented.
The author, "Teika Ason," is Fujiwara no Teika. A son of Fujiwara no Shunzei, he was one of the compilers of the Shin Kokin Wakashū and later compiled the Shin Chokusen Wakashū.
The scene is a snowy evening, and the place is the ford of Sano in Kii Province.
The direct occasion is the presentation of a hundred-poem sequence. The headnote does not record for which gathering the hundred poems were composed.
The foundation poem is Naga no Okimaro's poem in Book Three of the Man'yōshū: "Kurushiku mo furikuru ame ka Miwa no saki Sano no watari ni ie mo aranaku ni" (How cruelly the rain comes pouring down! At Cape Miwa, at the ford of Sano, there is not a house to be found).

The first line, "koma tomete," means "stopping my horse."
The second line, "sode uchiharau," means "to brush off the snow that has fallen on my sleeves," with "uchi" as a prefix that smooths the rhythm.
The third line, "kage mo nashi," means "there is no shelter" in which to escape the snow and brush the sleeves, and the poem breaks after the third line.
The fourth line, "sano no watari no," names a poetic place in Kii Province, a ford around present-day Shingū in Wakayama Prefecture, taking the fourth line of the foundation poem as it stands.
The last line, "yuki no yūgure," closes on a noun. Replacing the falling rain of the foundation poem with falling snow, and recasting its lament "not a house to be found" as "no shelter," the poem paints like a single picture a traveler standing at a broad ford in the snow at dusk. It shares its last line with 663 in this book; there the one who waits in a deep mountain village is sung, here the traveler moving through the snow, so that the one who waits and the one who travels form a pair.

Author

Fujiwara no Teika

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other