思ひ出づるをりたく柴と聞くからに
たぐひ知られぬ夕煙かな
たぐひ知られぬ夕煙かな
- Roma-ji
-
Omoiizuru ori taku shiba to kiku kara ni tagui shirarenu yūkeburi kana
- English Translation
-
"Remembering,
I break and burn the brushwood"—
no sooner heard,
there is nothing to compare
with that smoke of evening.
- Meaning
- No sooner have I heard of brushwood broken and burned at the moment of recalling the one who is gone than that evening smoke seems beyond all compare.
- Commentary
-
Book Eight Lament Poems 802
Headnote: "Reply."
This is the third poem of the sequence remembering the dead through the things of winter, a reply to the preceding poem. It answers that no sooner has he heard of brushwood burned at a moment of remembrance than that evening smoke seems beyond compare. The headnote says "Reply," answering Retired Emperor Go-Toba's poem before it.
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 same tenth month as the preceding poem, and the place is not recorded.
The direct occasion is the reply to the poem sent by Retired Emperor Go-Toba in the preceding poem.
The first line, "omoiizuru," takes up the first line of the preceding poem as it is.
In the second line, "ori taku shiba to," "ori," as in the preceding poem, is a pivot word meaning both "ori," the moment of recalling, and "ori," breaking brushwood to burn. It quotes the second line of the preceding poem almost unchanged, receiving it with "to" as the retired emperor's words.
In the third line, "kiku kara ni," "kara ni" means "no sooner than." It says that his heart is moved the instant he hears the retired emperor's poem.
In the fourth line, "tagui shirarenu," "tagui" means something to set beside or compare with. "Re" is spontaneous, meaning "it naturally seems that nothing compares."
In the last line, "yūkeburi kana," "kana" is exclamatory, and "yūkeburi" from the third line of the preceding poem is set at the end. Using the very words of the first three lines of the sender's poem, the reply receives the retired emperor's grief as beyond all compare. The next poem, 803, carries this smoke on as a cloud that is a keepsake.
- Author
- Jien
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- Had I not come today, would I have missed the sight? In this mountain village the autumn leaves and people in a world that does not last.
- Remembering, I break and burn the brushwood— the evening smoke; to choke on it is gladness, a keepsake not to forget.
- The cloud that is left as a keepsake of the dead— does it shower down? In the rain of the evening no color can be seen.
- The Godless Month— in this season of showers, how are your robes, I wonder, you who served the Autumn Palace now gone by into the sky?