Yuku toshi o oshima no ama no nuregoromo kasanete sode ni nami ya kakuran

English Translation

Grieving for the year
that goes, like the fisher folk
of Oshima, their robes soaked,
layer on layer, must I let
the waves splash on my sleeves?

Meaning

Grieving for the departing year like the fisher folk of Oshima in their soaking robes—must I, as the years pile up, let waves of tears splash layer upon layer over my sleeves?

Commentary

Book Six Winter Poems 704

Headnote: "Composed on the spirit of 'Year's End by the Sea' at the house of the Tsuchimikado Palace Minister."
This is the fourteenth poem of the year's-end sequence. Grieving for the departing year, the speaker wonders whether, like the fisher folk of Oshima in their soaking robes, waves of tears must splash on his sleeves layer upon layer as the years pile up. According to the headnote, it was composed on the topic "Year's End by the Sea" at the house of the Tsuchimikado Palace Minister, Minamoto no Michichika.
The author, "Ariie Ason," is Fujiwara no Ariie. A son of Fujiwara no Shigeie, he was a poet of the Rokujō Fujiwara house and one of the compilers of the Shin Kokin Wakashū.
The scene is the end of the year, and the place is the seashore of Oshima in Michinoku Province.
The direct occasion is the topic "Year's End by the Sea" at the house of the Tsuchimikado Palace Minister Minamoto no Michichika.

The first line, "yuku toshi o," means "the year that is passing away."
In the second line, "oshima no ama no," "oshima" carries both "oshima," to grieve for the passing year, and Oshima, a poetic place in Michinoku Province. Oshima is an island at Matsushima in present-day Miyagi Prefecture, sung as a home of fisher folk.
The third line, "nuregoromo," refers to the fisher folk's robes soaked with brine, and the poem breaks after the third line. It presents the "seashore" of the topic.
In the fourth line, "kasanete sode ni," "kasane" serves both for layering soaked robes and for piling up years: "again, layer upon layer, on my sleeves."
The last line, "nami ya kakuran," closes with the attributive form of the conjectural auxiliary "ran," answering the interrogative particle "ya," and wonders, "will waves splash over them?" As waves splash over the fisher folk's soaked robes, so waves of tears splash over the sleeves of one who grieves for the year; through this conceit the poem entrusts the topic's "year's end" to a seashore scene. From the swift current of the Hatsuse River in the preceding poem, the watery scene moves to waves on the sea, and the next poem, 705, on the same topic, sings of the Pine Hill of Sue over which the waves pass.

Author

Fujiwara no Ariie

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other