我が道を守らば君を守るらん
齢は譲れ住吉の松
齢は譲れ住吉の松
- Roma-ji
-
Waga michi o mamoraba kimi o mamoruran yowai wa yuzure Sumiyoshi no matsu
- English Translation
-
If you guard the Way
that I follow, then my lord
you surely will guard—
yield him your many years,
O pine of Sumiyoshi.
- Meaning
- If the god of Sumiyoshi guards the Way of poetry I follow, surely he will guard my lord as well—O pine of Sumiyoshi, yield your years to him.
- Commentary
-
Book Seven Felicitation Poems 739
Headnote: "At the Poetry Contest in 1,500 Rounds."
This is the first poem of the sequence of felicitations through the pines of poetic places. If the god of Sumiyoshi guards the speaker's Way of poetry, he will surely guard the lord as well, and the pine of Sumiyoshi is bidden to yield its years to him. According to the headnote, it was composed for the Poetry Contest in 1,500 Rounds.
The author was a son of Fujiwara no Shunzei and one of the compilers of the Shin kokin wakashū.
The scene is a celebratory landscape with no season specified, and the place is beneath the pines of the Sumiyoshi Shrine.
The direct occasion is a contribution to the Poetry Contest in 1,500 Rounds held by Retired Emperor Go-Toba.
Sumiyoshi is a poetic place in Settsu Province, and its deity was revered by poets as a god of waka.
The first line, "waga michi o," means "my Way," referring here to the Way of waka that the poet pursues.
The second line, "mamoraba kimi o," means "if it guards, then my lord." "Ba" attached to the irrealis form expresses supposition. It presumes that the god of Sumiyoshi, a god of poetry, protects the Way of poetry.
The third line, "mamoruran," means "will surely guard," and the sense breaks after the third line. Repeating "mamoru" in the second and third lines, the reasoning moves from protection of poetry to protection of the lord.
In the fourth line, "yowai wa yuzure," "yuzure" is imperative. Addressing the long-lived pine, the speaker asks it to yield its years to the lord.
The last line, "Sumiyoshi no matsu," ends on a noun, placing the one addressed at the end. The protection of the Sumiyoshi god and the longevity of the pine are combined in one poem. The next poem, 740, sings of "the pine of Takasago," continuing the pines of poetic places.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Teika
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- 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.
- 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.
- Like seaweed for salt, though raked and written, they'll not end— for my lord's long reign as its count, the poems I set down, the waves of Waka Bay.