眺むれば我が山の端に雪白し
都の人よあはれとも見よ
都の人よあはれとも見よ
- Roma-ji
-
Nagamureba waga yama no ha ni yuki shiroshi miyako no hito yo aware tomo miyo
- English Translation
-
When I gaze out,
along the ridge of my mountain
the snow lies white—
you people of the capital,
look on it with feeling too
- Meaning
- As I gaze out, the snow lies white along the ridge of my mountain—you people of the capital, look upon it with a feeling heart.
- Commentary
-
Book Six Winter Poems 680
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the twenty-fourth poem of the snow sequence. Gazing at the snow lying white along the ridge of the mountain where he lives, the speaker calls on the people of the capital to look upon it with feeling too. The headnote continues from the preceding poem with no topic given, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author is not named in the original and continues from the preceding poem as 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 winter with snow lying deep, and the place is the mountain where the author lives.
The direct occasion is not recorded.
The first line, "nagamureba," means "when I gaze out," with "ba" attached to the perfective form expressing an established condition.
The second line, "waga yama no ha ni," means "along the ridge of my mountain," the mountain being Mount Hiei, where the author lived.
The third line, "yuki shiroshi," means "the snow is white," and the poem breaks after the third line.
The fourth line, "miyako no hito yo," is an address calling out to the people of the capital.
The last line, "aware tomo miyo," means "look on it with feeling," with "aware" meaning deep feeling or sympathy and "miyo" an imperative. Since the snow on the mountain ridge can be seen from the capital, the speaker calls on its people to view that snow with a heart that thinks of him living on the mountain. Following the preceding poem's thought of how others would see the footprints in the garden snow, this poem thinks of how the people of the capital would see the mountain snow and calls to them from the side of the one being seen. It shares with 658 in this book, which asked from a snowy bamboo hut about the first snow in the capital, the pattern of mountain and capital thinking of each other across the snow.
- Author
- Jien
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- The sky clouds over, and the snow blurs all the air in this old village; would that someone came to call before it piles up deep
- In the garden snow I left my own footprints as I went out— will others see them and think someone has come to call?
- Like the winter grass, the one who withered from my life— would that one now come treading through the snow to see me? Surely not
- No one will come seeking, struggling to force a path through the drifts— so pile up, fold on fold, white snow within my garden