敷島や大和島根も神代より
君がためとや固め置きけん
君がためとや固め置きけん
- Roma-ji
-
Shikishima ya Yamato shimane mo kamiyo yori kimi ga tame to ya katame okiken
- English Translation
-
Shikishima's land,
the islands of Yamato, too,
since the age of gods—
was it for your sake, my lord,
that they were made firm and set?
- Meaning
- Could it be that even the islands of Yamato, the land of Shikishima, were made firm and set in place from the age of the gods for your sake, my lord?
- Commentary
-
Book Seven Felicitation Poems 736
Headnote: "When I presented a hundred-poem sequence."
This is the first poem of the sequence celebrating the reign through the age of the gods and the heavens. The speaker wonders whether even the islands of Yamato were made firm from the age of the gods for the lord's sake. According to the headnote, it was composed when a hundred-poem sequence was presented.
No author's name is given; the poem follows the preceding one as a poem by Fujiwara no Yoshitsune.
The scene is a celebratory landscape with no season specified, and the place is the whole land of Yamato.
The direct occasion is the presentation of a hundred-poem sequence.
The Kojiki records that Izanagi and Izanami, commanded to put in order and make firm the drifting land, gave birth to the islands, and the word "katame," making firm, recalls this creation of the land.
In the first line, "Shikishima ya," "ya" is an exclamatory interjectory particle. Shikishima was originally a place name in Yamato Province; it became a pillow word for "Yamato" and also a word for Japan itself.
The second line, "Yamato shimane mo," means "the land of Yamato, too." "Shimane" means islands, the land surrounded by sea. From the plants and trees of the preceding poems, the object of celebration widens to the land itself.
The third line, "kamiyo yori," means "from the age of the gods." It reaches back to the mythic time of the land's creation.
In the fourth line, "kimi ga tame to ya," "ya" is an interrogative particle concluded by "ken" in the last line. "Tame" here and "katame" in the last line echo in sound, shaping the rhythm.
The last line, "katame okiken," means "did they make it firm and set it?" closing the kakari-musubi with the attributive form of the conjectural past "ken." It is a grand felicitation that sees the very formation of the land as prepared for the lord, and the next poem, 737, likewise sings of "the light shining in heaven," a phrase tied to the age of the gods.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Yoshitsune
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- All under heaven, the plants and trees now budding, far as eyes can see— knowing no bounds, stretching on, the ages of this reign to come.
- Everywhere alike buds swell on trees in springtime, a pale, tender green— but in the pine alone the hue of a thousand ages dwells.
- Wet and dried again, on the leaves of sacred sprigs with dew and with frost, the light that shines in heaven— how many ages has it passed?
- My lord's reign I will not bar at a thousand ages: from the gate of heaven the moon and sun that come forth are without any limit.