君が代は千代ともささじ天の戸や
出づる月日の限りなければ
出づる月日の限りなければ
- Roma-ji
-
Kimi ga yo wa chiyo to mo sasaji ama no to ya izuru tsukihi no kagiri nakereba
- English Translation
-
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.
- Meaning
- I will not bound my lord's reign at a thousand ages, for the moon and sun that come forth from the gate of heaven know no end.
- Commentary
-
Book Seven Felicitation Poems 738
Headnote: "Composed on the spirit of felicitation."
This is the third poem of the sequence celebrating the reign through the age of the gods and the heavens. Since the moon and sun coming forth from the gate of heaven have no limit, the speaker will not bound the lord's reign at a thousand ages. According to the headnote, it was composed on the spirit of felicitation.
The author was the father of Fujiwara no Teika and compiled the Senzai wakashū.
The scene is a celebratory landscape with no season specified, and the place is the heavens where the moon and sun come and go.
The direct occasion is a composition on the theme of felicitation.
The first line, "kimi ga yo wa," means "my lord's reign." The theme of felicitation is raised at the outset.
In the second line, "chiyo to mo sasaji," "sasa" is a pivot word joining "sasu," to point to and set a limit of a thousand ages, and "sasu," to bar or close the gate of heaven in the third line. "Ji" expresses negative intention, and the sense breaks after the second line.
The third line, "ama no to ya," means "the gate of heaven," with "ya" as an exclamatory interjectory particle. It is the gate through which the moon and sun come and go, and it forms an associated word with "sasu," to bar. Taking up "the light that shines in heaven" in the preceding poem, 737, the heavenly scene continues.
The fourth line, "izuru tsukihi no," means "of the moon and sun that come forth" from the gate of heaven. It shows their ceaseless coming and going.
The last line, "kagiri nakereba," means "since there is no limit," placing the reason for the second line afterward in inversion. It is the same last line as in 733 in this book; there the reason was the limitless springs, while here it is the limitless moon and sun, and the poem argues that even the conventional figure of a thousand ages is too small.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Shunzei
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- 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?
- 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?
- If you guard the Way that I follow, then my lord you surely will guard— yield him your many years, O pine of Sumiyoshi.
- The Takasago pine will surely become a thing of the long-gone past— still, for all the years to come, the moon of the autumn night.