Niwa no yuki ni waga ato tsukete idetsuru o towarenikeri to hito ya miruran

English Translation

In the garden snow
I left my own footprints
as I went out—
will others see them and think
someone has come to call?

Meaning

I left my own footprints in the garden snow as I went out—will people see them and think that someone has come to visit me?

Commentary

Book Six Winter Poems 679

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the twenty-third poem of the snow sequence. The speaker, having left his own footprints in the garden snow on going out, wonders whether others will take them for the tracks of a visitor. The headnote continues from the preceding poem with no topic given, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author, "Former Archbishop Jien," is Jien. A son of the Regent Fujiwara no Tadamichi, he served four times as Tendai Abbot and wrote the historical work Gukanshō.
The scene is a day of settled snow, and the place is the garden of the author's dwelling.
The direct occasion is not recorded.

The first line, "niwa no yuki ni," means "in the snow piled in the garden" and runs to six syllables, one over the count.
The second line, "waga ato tsukete," means "leaving my own footprints."
The third line, "idetsuru o," means "as I went out," with "tsuru" as the attributive form of the perfective auxiliary "tsu."
The fourth line, "towarenikeri to," means "that I have been visited," with "re" as the continuative form of the passive auxiliary "ru," "ni" perfective, and "keri" exclamatory.
The last line, "hito ya miruran," closes with the attributive form of the conjectural auxiliary "ran," answering the interrogative particle "ya," and wonders, "will people see it so?" The poem sings of the loneliness of having no visitors through the wit of wondering whether one's own footprints might be mistaken for a visitor's. The "traces" on the snow that ran through 659, 664, and 665 in this book are sung here in reverse: not as the sign of a visit, but as one's own footprints mistaken for a visit. Following the preceding poem's wish for a visitor, it sings of the loneliness of a dwelling no one visits.

Author

Jien

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other