Itsu no ma ni mi o yamagatsu ni nashihatete miyako o tabi to omou naruran

English Translation

When did it happen—
that I made myself at last
a mountain dweller,
so that now I think of the city
as a place of journeying?

Meaning

When did it happen that I made myself wholly a mountain dweller, so that now I think of the capital as a place I visit on a journey?

Commentary

Book Eight Lament Poems 848

Headnote: "When the woman I had visited died in a mountain village, and I had been living there in idle seclusion, I went briefly to the capital, and as I was about to return at dawn, people hurried me, saying the cocks had crowed."
This is the fifth poem of the sequence lamenting the deaths of those close, and the last poem of that sequence. It asks when he became wholly a mountain dweller, so that he now thinks of the capital as a place visited on a journey. According to the headnote, when the woman he had visited died in a mountain village, he secluded himself there; going briefly to the capital, he was about to return at dawn when people hurried him, saying the cocks had crowed, and so he composed this poem.
The son of Fujiwara no Akisue, the author served as Master of the Left Capital Office and compiled the Shika Wakashū by order of Retired Emperor Sutoku. He was a poet of the Rokujō Fujiwara house.
The scene is dawn, set in the capital, where he had gone for a short while.
The direct occasion is being hurried by others as he set out at dawn to return to the mountain village where the woman had died.

The first line, "itsu no ma ni," means "when did it happen," and together with "ran" in the last line shows his surprise at his own change.
In the second line, "mi o yamagatsu ni," "yamagatsu" is one who lives in a mountain village. It refers to himself, who has stayed secluded in the mountain village where the woman died.
The third line, "nashihatete," means "having wholly made myself."
The fourth line, "miyako o tabi to," means "the capital, where he ought to live, as a place of journeying." It takes up the headnote's picture of hurrying back from the capital to the mountain village.
In the last line, "omou naruran," "ran" expresses conjecture about a cause, meaning "how have I come to think so?" The mountain village of the dead woman has become the place he returns to, and the familiar capital seems instead a place visited on a journey. After the laments for a friend, a wife, and an emperor that ran to the preceding poem, 847, this poem sings of a self whose very dwelling has changed after losing a beloved, and closes the sequence lamenting the deaths of those close.

Author

Fujiwara no Akisuke

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other