Furusato o wakareshi aki o kazoureba yatose ni narinu ariake no tsuki

English Translation

My old home I left
in an autumn long ago—
counting, I find
eight years have now gone by,
moon lingering at dawn.

Meaning

Counting the autumns since I parted from my old home, I find that eight years have passed—O moon lingering in the dawn sky.

Commentary

Book Eight Lament Poems 798

Headnote: "A poem composed, after the death of Fujiwara no Sadamichi, on a bright moonlit night in someone's dream, saying, 'I am in the courtiers' hall.'"
This is the twenty-fourth poem of the sequence remembering the dead through the things of autumn. It says that counting from the autumn of parting from the old home, eight years have passed, and addresses the moon lingering at dawn. According to the headnote, after Fujiwara no Sadamichi died, he appeared on a bright moonlit night in someone's dream, said "I am in the courtiers' hall," and composed this poem.
No author's name is given in the text. According to the headnote, the poem is said to have been composed by the late Fujiwara no Sadamichi in someone's dream. Nothing of Fujiwara no Sadamichi's career is known from the headnote.
The scene is a bright moonlit night after Sadamichi's death, set within someone's dream.
The direct occasion is someone's dream of the late Sadamichi.

In the first line, "furusato o," "furusato" is the place one once lived, here the dwelling in this world that the late Sadamichi has left behind.
The second line, "wakareshi aki o," means "the autumn of parting." "Shi" marks the past, pointing to the autumn when Sadamichi departed the world.
In the third line, "kazoureba," "ba" expresses a realized condition, meaning "when I count."
In the fourth line, "yatose ni narinu," "nu" marks completion, meaning "eight years have passed." The poem pauses after the fourth line.
The last line, "ariake no tsuki," ends on a noun. It is the moon that lingers in the sky after daybreak, taking up "a bright moonlit night" from the headnote. Where the poems before it are the laments of those left behind, here the years are counted from the side of the dead. In standing on the side of the dead, it echoes 774 of this book, which imagined the dead, too, sorrowing beneath the skies of their journey. The next poem, 799, also remembers the dead on seeing the autumn moon, continuing the poems of the moon.

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other