Aioi no Oshio no yama no komatsubara ima yori chiyo no kage o matanan

English Translation

Growing up as one,
on the slopes of Mount Oshio
this field of young pines—
from now, for a thousand years,
wait for the shade you will cast.

Meaning

O field of young pines on Mount Oshio, growing up together—from this day on, wait for the shade you will cast a thousand years hence.

Commentary

Book Seven Felicitation Poems 727

Headnote: "Composed when Retired Emperor Go-Reizei, while still a child, bestowed a pine from the hare staffs on someone's child."
This is the first poem of the sequence on young pines. The speaker calls on the field of young pines on Mount Oshio, growing up together, to wait from now on for the shade of a thousand years. According to the headnote, it was composed when Go-Reizei, still a child, bestowed a pine from the hare staffs on someone's child.
The author is Fujiwara no Kenshi, a daughter of Murasaki Shikibu. She served as nurse to Emperor Go-Reizei and later became the wife of Takashina no Nariakira, Senior Assistant Governor-General of Dazaifu.
The scene is around the first Day of the Hare in the First Month, and the place is in the presence of the young Go-Reizei.
The direct occasion is the young Go-Reizei's bestowal of a pine from the hare staffs on someone's child.
Hare staffs were staffs presented on the first Day of the Hare in the First Month to ward off evil. A precedent is the poem by Ki no Tsurayuki in the Gosen wakashū, "Ōhara ya Oshio no yama no komatsubara haya kodakakare chiyo no kage min," which shares the conceit of thinking on the thousand-year shade of the young pines of Mount Oshio.

The first line, "aioi no," means "growing up together." It can be read as overlaying on the young pines the growing up together of the child Go-Reizei and the child who received the pine.
The second line, "Oshio no yama no," means "of Mount Oshio" in Yamashiro Province. Mount Oshio stands at Ōharano in present-day Nishikyō Ward, Kyoto, and at its foot is the Ōharano Shrine, which enshrines the tutelary deity of the Fujiwara clan.
The third line, "komatsubara," is a field of young pines. The next poem, 728, uses the same third line, "komatsubara," continuing the young pine poems.
The fourth line, "ima yori chiyo no," means "from now, of a thousand years," leading on to "kage," shade, in the last line. It views the childhood of the present and the distant future as one continuous span.
In the last line, "kage o matanan," "nan" expresses a wish directed at another: "may you wait." Like the last line "kage o matamashi" of 709 in this book, it waits for the thousand-year shade, but whereas 709 ends with "mashi," the speaker's own hesitation, this poem ends with "nan," a wish addressed to the pines.

Author

Fujiwara no Kenshi

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other