Mare ni kuru yowa mo kanashiki matsukaze o taezu ya koke no shita ni kikuran

English Translation

Even the one night
I rarely come, it grieves me—
this wind in the pines;
does she hear it without end
beneath the moss where she lies?

Meaning

This wind in the pines is sorrowful even for the rare night I come here—does she hear it without end beneath the moss?

Commentary

Book Eight Lament Poems 796

Headnote: "Composed while staying at a hall near the grave, around autumn, after the death of Lord Teika's mother."
This is the twenty-second poem of the sequence remembering the dead through the things of autumn. It wonders whether the dead hears without end, beneath the moss, the wind in the pines that is sorrowful even on the rare night he comes. According to the headnote, it was composed around autumn after the death of Lord Teika's mother, while he stayed at a hall near her grave.
No author's name is given for this poem in the text, and it follows the author of the preceding poem. "Lord Teika's mother" is the author's wife Bifukumon'in no Kaga, who died in the second month of Kenkyū 4 (1193).
The scene is an autumn night after his wife's death, set at a hall near the grave.
The direct occasion is staying at a hall near the grave.

The first line, "mare ni kuru," means "coming only rarely." It speaks of the living poet who seldom visits the grave.
In the second line, "yowa mo kanashiki," "mo" means "even." It says that even the one night he comes and listens is sorrowful, and modifies "matsukaze" in the third line.
The third line, "matsukaze o," is the sound of the wind in the pines. Following the storm wind of the hills in the preceding poem, 795, it again sings of the sound of the wind.
In the fourth line, "taezu ya koke no," "taezu," without end, is paired with "mare ni," rarely, in the first line. "Ya" is an interrogative binding particle, completed by "ran" in the last line. "Koke no shita," beneath the moss, means within the grave.
In the last line, "shita ni kikuran," "ran" expresses present conjecture and, taking up "ya" in the fourth line, closes as "does she hear it?" Contrasting the living who come rarely with the dead who lie always beneath the grave, he imagines his late wife hearing without end the wind in the pines that he can hardly bear for a single night. Like 788 of this book, it mourns the death of Bifukumon'in no Kaga, and in the arrangement the poem of a husband who lost his wife answers the poem of a son who lost his mother.

Author

Fujiwara no Shunzei

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other