立ち寄れば涼しかりけり水鳥の
青羽の山の松の夕風
青羽の山の松の夕風
- Roma-ji
-
Tachiyoreba suzushikari keri mizutori no Aoba no yama no matsu no yūkaze
- English Translation
-
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.
- Meaning
- When I stop here for a while, how cool it is—the evening wind through the pines of Mount Aoba.
- Commentary
-
Book Seven Felicitation Poems 755
Headnote: "Mount Aoba, a Yuki poem for the Great Thanksgiving Festival of Kenkyū 9."
This is the ninth poem of the sequence of Great Thanksgiving Festival poems. Stopping here, the speaker finds it cool: the evening wind through the pines of Mount Aoba. According to the headnote, it was composed on Mount Aoba as a poem of the Yuki province for the Great Thanksgiving Festival of Kenkyū 9.
The author was a son of Fujiwara no Naganori and served as Professor of Literature and Senior Assistant Minister of Ceremonial.
The scene is a summer evening, and the place is Mount Aoba in the Yuki province.
The direct occasion is the composition on a place name of the Yuki province for the Great Thanksgiving Festival of Emperor Tsuchimikado in Kenkyū 9 (1198).
The first line, "tachiyoreba," means "when I stop by," with "ba" attached to the realis form expressing a confirmed condition.
In the second line, "suzushikari keri," the exclamatory "keri" expresses the wonder of noticing the coolness. The sense breaks after the second line, in inversion with the lower verse.
The third line, "mizutori no," is a pillow word leading to "Aoba," green wings. From the blue-green of a water bird's wings, it draws out the place name.
The fourth line, "Aoba no yama no," means "of Mount Aoba," a place name of the Yuki province.
The last line, "matsu no yūkaze," ends on a noun. In inversion, it reveals the source of the coolness at the end: the evening wind in the pines. Without words of felicitation, the poem conveys the peace of the land through evergreen pines and a refreshing wind. The next poem, 756, is a Suki poem from the same festival, so the Yuki and Suki poems stand side by side.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Mitsunori
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- 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.
- 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?
- Ever green and firm, the water of Matsui's spring scooped up in my hands— in every drop that falls from them a thousand ages appear.
- Dew on the leaf tips, droplets falling at the roots— are these, in this world, the pattern of those left behind and those who go on before?