Furusato ni yuku hito mo gana tsugeyaran shiranu yamaji ni hitori madou to

English Translation

If only someone
were going to my old home—
I would send word:
"on an unknown mountain path
I wander all alone."

Meaning

If only there were someone going to my old home! I would send word by them: that on a mountain path I do not know, I wander all alone.

Commentary

Book Eight Lament Poems 814

Headnote: "In someone's dream, after the empress of Retired Emperor Go-Ichijō had passed away."
This is the first poem of the sequence on the lot of the dead. It wishes for someone going to the old home, to send word that the speaker wanders alone on an unknown mountain path. According to the headnote, it was composed in someone's dream after the empress of Emperor Go-Ichijō died.
No author's name is given in the text. According to the headnote, the poem is said to have been composed by the late empress of Go-Ichijō in someone's dream. The "empress of Go-Ichijō'in" is Fujiwara no Ishi, daughter of Fujiwara no Michinaga, who became the empress of Emperor Go-Ichijō. She died in Chōgen 9 (1036).
The scene is the time after Ishi's death, set within someone's dream.
The direct occasion is someone's dream of the late Ishi.

In the first line, "furusato ni," "furusato" is the place one once lived, here the dwelling in this world that the late empress has left behind.
In the second line, "yuku hito mo gana," "mo gana" expresses a wish, meaning "if only there were someone going." The poem pauses after the second line.
In the third line, "tsugeyaran," "n" expresses intention, meaning "I would send word." The poem pauses after the third line, and the message is placed in the lower verse.
The fourth line, "shiranu yamaji ni," means "on a mountain path I do not know," the road traveled after death.
In the last line, "hitori madou to," "madou" means to lose one's way. "To" marks the message, returning through inversion to "tsugeyaran" in the third line. 798 of this book is also a poem composed by the dead in someone's dream, and here once more a poem spoken from the side of the dead is set down. Where the preceding poem, 813, was the lament of a parent left behind, here the one who has gone tells of wandering alone.

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other