近江のや坂田の稲を掛け積みて
道ある御代の初めにぞ舂く
道ある御代の初めにぞ舂く
- Roma-ji
-
Ōmi no ya Sakata no ine o kake tsumite michi aru miyo no hajime ni zo tsuku
- English Translation
-
In Ōmi's land,
the rice of Sakata's fields
hung and heaped up high—
at the start of a reign of the Way
we pound it, pound it now.
- Meaning
- The rice of Sakata in Ōmi, hung on racks and heaped high, we pound now at the beginning of a reign in which the right Way prevails.
- Commentary
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Book Seven Felicitation Poems 753
Headnote: "A rice-pounding song, when I presented poems for the Yuki side at the Great Thanksgiving Festival of Nin'an 1."
This is the seventh poem of the sequence of Great Thanksgiving Festival poems. The rice of Sakata in Ōmi, hung and heaped up, is pounded at the beginning of a reign of the right Way. According to the headnote, it is a rice-pounding song presented for the Yuki province at the Great Thanksgiving Festival of Nin'an 1.
The author was the father of Fujiwara no Teika and compiled the Senzai wakashū.
The scene is the Great Thanksgiving Festival of Nin'an 1, and the place is Sakata in Ōmi, the Yuki province.
The direct occasion is the composition, as a rice-pounding song, on a place name of Ōmi Province, designated as the Yuki province for the Great Thanksgiving Festival of Emperor Rokujō in Nin'an 1 (1166).
A rice-pounding song was sung while pounding the rice offered to the gods at the Great Thanksgiving Festival. Sakata is a district of Ōmi Province on the northeastern shore of Lake Biwa.
In the first line, "Ōmi no ya," "ya" is an exclamatory interjectory particle. It names Ōmi, the Yuki province, at the outset.
The second line, "Sakata no ine o," means "the rice of Sakata" in Ōmi Province. The "ta," field, in the place name ties it to rice.
The third line, "kake tsumite," means "hanging the harvested rice on racks and heaping it up." The abundance of the harvest is shown.
The fourth line, "michi aru miyo no," means "of the reign in which the right Way prevails." It is the same phrase as "michi aru yo" in the preceding poem, 752, linking the festival poems through a shared phrase.
In the last line, "hajime ni zo tsuku," the emphatic particle "zo" is concluded by the attributive form "tsuku" in kakari-musubi. Calling the first Great Thanksgiving Festival after enthronement "the beginning of the reign," the poem makes the very work of pounding rice a celebration of the new reign's start.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Shunzei
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- Without any cloud, on Kagami, the mirror mountain, gazing at the moon— that this reign is bright and clear I know from the sky above.
- Past Mount Ōe, crossing over, Ikuno's plain stretches far ahead— an age where the Way is kept, how glad I am to have met!
- Since the age of gods, was it for this very day in long, heavy ears that the rice of Nagata first began to bend and bow?
- When I stop a while, how cool and fresh it is here— like the water bird's, on the green-winged Aoba hills, the evening wind through the pines.