さらでだに露けき嵯峨の野辺に来て
昔の跡にしをれぬるかな
昔の跡にしをれぬるかな
- Roma-ji
-
Sarade dani tsuyukeki saga no nobe ni kite mukashi no ato ni shiorenuru kana
- English Translation
-
Even were it not so,
to the dew-drenched fields of Saga
I have come, and here
at the traces of the past
I find myself drooping low.
- Meaning
- Coming to the fields of Saga, dew-drenched even at other times, I have drooped like wet grass at the traces of one long gone.
- Commentary
-
Book Eight Lament Poems 785
Headnote: "Composed on going to the place in Sagano where the grave of Major Counselor Tadaie lay, on my way to visit Hōrinji."
This is the eleventh poem of the sequence remembering the dead through the things of autumn. It says that coming to the fields of Saga, dew-drenched even at other times, he has drooped at the traces of the past. According to the headnote, it was composed when he stopped by the grave of Major Counselor Tadaie in Sagano on his way to visit Hōrinji.
The son of Major Counselor Fujiwara no Tadaie, the author rose to Provisional Middle Counselor and was the father of Fujiwara no Shunzei. "Major Counselor Tadaie" is the author's father, Fujiwara no Tadaie, son of Provisional Major Counselor Fujiwara no Nagaie.
The scene is the season when dew lies on Sagano, set near Tadaie's grave in Sagano.
The direct occasion is stopping at his father Tadaie's grave on the way to Hōrinji.
Hōrinji is a temple on Arashiyama in Saga. Sagano, a moor on the western outskirts of the capital, is a famed place in poetry sung of together with autumn flowers and dew.
The first line, "sarade dani," means "even were it not so." It sets at the opening the implication "even if one were not visiting a grave."
In the second line, "tsuyukeki saga no," "tsuyukeki" means soaked and heavy with dew. Over the dew of Sagano lies the dampness of tears shed at the grave.
The third line, "nobe ni kite," means "coming to the fields" of Saga. Where the preceding poem, 784, was sent from Uji, the scene now moves to Sagano, west of the capital.
In the fourth line, "mukashi no ato ni," "mukashi no ato," the traces of the past, refers to his late father's grave. It again takes up the word "mukashi," which has continued since 782 of this book.
In the last line, "shiorenuru kana," "shioru" means for plants to droop, soaked with dew, and this image is laid over a self bowed down by grief. "Nuru" marks completion and "kana" is exclamatory. The next poems, 786 and 787, also sing of Sagano, so that three poems of Sagano follow one another.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Toshitada
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- As I lie awake, the sound of the wind that blows right through my body— in the past, far from my sleeves, I must have heard it unmoved.
- Wetting my sleeves, like the dew on the upper leaves of the bush clover, never forgetting the past, the voices of insects sound.
- Such is the sorrow— like the cricket of Sagano in the autumn fields, do you still, in your old home, cry aloud with weeping voice?
- Now, then, it must be— the way of this sorrowful world— these fields of Saga I will cherish as the place where the dew has vanished all.