Atarashiki toshi ya waga mi o tomekuran hima yuku koma ni michi o makasete

English Translation

Will the coming year
seek me out and find its way
to where I dwell,
trusting the road to the steed
that races past the gap?

Meaning

Will the new year come seeking me out, leaving its road to the swift horse that flashes past a crack in the wall—time that runs so fast?

Commentary

Book Six Winter Poems 694

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed at the end of the year."
This is the fourth poem of the year's-end sequence. The speaker wonders whether the new year will come seeking him out, leaving its road to time, swift as a horse glimpsed racing past a crack in a wall. The headnote continues from the preceding poem, and this poem too was composed at the end of the year.
The author, "Major Counselor Takasue," is Fujiwara no Takasue. A son of the Middle Counselor Fujiwara no Ienari, he rose to Provisional Major Counselor.
The scene is the end of the year, and no place is specified.
The direct occasion is composing on the arrival of the year's end.
"The horse passing a gap" is a phrase based on an image in the Zhuangzi: the passing of days and months is as swift as glimpsing a white horse gallop past a crack in a wall.

The first line, "atarashiki," modifies "toshi," year, in the second line.
In the second line, "toshi ya waga mi o," "ya" is an interrogative particle corresponding to "ran" in the third line.
The third line, "tomekuran," means "will it come seeking me?" with "ran" in the attributive form of the auxiliary of present conjecture. The poem breaks after the third line, in inverted relation to the lower verse.
The fourth line, "hima yuku koma ni," means "to the horse racing past the gap," a figure for the swift passing of time.
The last line, "michi o makasete," means "leaving the road to it." Likening the new year to a traveler who comes seeking the speaker by leaving the way to the swift horse of passing time, the poem sings of how fast the year turns over and of a new year pressing upon an aging body. Where the preceding poem looked back on the images of past years, this poem turns its eyes to the year to come, so that the departing year and the coming year stand side by side.

Author

Fujiwara no Takasue

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other