Furusato o kouru namida ya hitori yuku tomo naki yama no michishiba no tsuyu

English Translation

Tears of longing
for the home I left behind?
I walk on alone—
on the friendless mountain path,
the dew on the wayside grass.

Meaning

Are these the tears of longing for my old home—the dew on the wayside grass of the mountain path, where I walk alone, with no companion?

Commentary

Book Eight Lament Poems 794

Headnote: "Composed on remembering, when those who had been my companions on the path died one after another."
This is the twentieth poem of the sequence remembering the dead through the things of autumn. It asks whether the dew on the wayside grass of the mountain path, where he walks alone without companions, is the tears of longing for his old home. According to the headnote, it was composed in remembrance when those who had practiced the Buddhist path with him died one after another.
The son of Chancellor Fujiwara no Tadamichi, the author served four times as head of the Tendai school and wrote the history Gukanshō.
The scene is the season when dew lies on the grass, set on a mountain path.
The direct occasion is the deaths, one after another, of those who had practiced with him.

In the first line, "furusato o," "furusato" is the place where one once lived.
In the second line, "kouru namida ya," "ya" is an interrogative binding particle, framing a question as to whether the dew on the wayside grass in the last line is tears of longing for that home.
The third line, "hitori yuku," means "walking alone" on the mountain path.
In the fourth line, "tomo naki yama no," "tomo naki" means "without companions," having lost those who walked the path with him. It takes up "dōgyō," companions on the path, from the headnote.
The last line, "michishiba no tsuyu," ends on a noun. "Michishiba" is the grass growing by the wayside, and its dew is seen as tears of longing for home. Following the preceding poem, 793, in which the poet on a journey sees pampas grass as the keepsake of a man of long ago, here too the dead are remembered in the figure of one walking a mountain path alone. The dew, which since 757 of this book has been a figure for fleeting life, is here set down as something that might be mistaken for tears.

Author

Jien

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other