Furu yuki ni taku mo no keburi kakitaete sabishiku mo aru ka shiogama no ura

English Translation

In the falling snow
the smoke of burning seaweed
has died away—
how desolate it is,
the Bay of Shiogama!

Meaning

In the falling snow the smoke from the seaweed fires has died away completely—how desolate the Bay of Shiogama has become!

Commentary

Book Six Winter Poems 674

Headnote: "When I had hundred-poem sequences composed at my house."
This is the eighteenth poem of the snow sequence. In the falling snow the smoke from the seaweed fires has died away, and the poem laments how desolate the Bay of Shiogama has become. According to the headnote, it was composed when the author had poets compose hundred-poem sequences at his house.
The author, "the Lay Monk Former Regent and Chancellor," is Kujō Kanezane. A son of the Regent Fujiwara no Tadamichi, he served as Regent, Chancellor, and Grand Minister and left the diary Gyokuyō. He was the elder brother of Jien and the father of Fujiwara no Yoshitsune.
The scene is winter as the snow falls, and the place is the Bay of Shiogama in Michinoku Province.
The direct occasion is the composition of hundred-poem sequences that he had poets compose at his house.
As a precedent for singing of the desolation of Shiogama Bay with its smoke extinguished, there is Ki no Tsurayuki's Kokin Wakashū poem "Kimi masade keburi taenishi Shiogama no ura sabishiku mo miewataru kana" (With its lord gone and its smoke extinguished, how desolate the Bay of Shiogama looks, as far as the eye can see).

The first line, "furu yuki ni," means "in the falling snow."
The second line, "taku mo no keburi," refers to the smoke of seaweed burned to make salt.
The third line, "kakitaete," means "having died away completely," with "kaki" as an intensifying prefix.
The fourth line, "sabishiku mo aru ka," means "how desolate it is," with "ka" as an exclamatory particle. The poem breaks after the fourth line, in inverted relation to the last line.
The last line, "shiogama no ura," closes on a noun, naming the Bay of Shiogama, a poetic place in Michinoku Province. On the coast of present-day Shiogama in Miyagi Prefecture, it was known for the smoke rising from salt fires. The loss of the smoke that usually rises from the seaweed fires, put out by snow, shows the desolation of a bay emptied of any sign of human life. Where Tsurayuki's poem sang of the desolation of smoke extinguished after its lord's death, here it is the snow that puts out the smoke. Following the poems before in which snow closes the paths, it sings of a scene in which snow puts out the smoke.

Author

Kujō Kanezane

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other