玉鉾の道の山風寒からば
形見がてらに着なむとぞ思ふ
形見がてらに着なむとぞ思ふ
- Roma-ji
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Tamahoko no michi no yamakaze samukaraba katami gatera ni kinamu to zo omou
- English Translation
-
Along the jeweled road,
should the mountain winds blow cold,
as a keepsake too
you will put this garment on—
this, indeed, is what I think.
- Meaning
- If the mountain winds along your road turn cold, I believe you will wear this clothing, and let it serve as a keepsake of me as well.
- Commentary
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Book Nine Parting Poems 857
Headnote: "Composed when sending a set of clothing to someone going down to the province of Mutsu."
This is the opening poem of Parting Poems and the first of a sequence seeing off people bound for distant provinces. If the mountain winds along the road turn cold, the speaker believes, the traveler will wear the clothing as a keepsake as well. According to the headnote, it was composed when sending clothing to someone leaving for Mutsu.
The author was a poet of the early Heian period, one of the compilers of the Kokinshū and the writer of the Tosa Diary.
The scene is the departure of someone leaving for Mutsu, and the place is the capital.
The direct occasion was the gift of clothing to a person going down to Mutsu.
The first line, "tamahoko no," is a pillow word modifying "road." A word evoking the length of a journey is set at the very start of the book of parting poems.
The second line, "michi no yamakaze," is the mountain wind blowing along the road. The speaker imagines the cold of the long way to Mutsu.
The third line, "samukaraba," means "if it is cold," setting a hypothetical condition. It shows the giver's concern for the chill of a road not yet traveled.
The fourth line, "katami gatera ni," means "serving also as a keepsake." "Gatera" expresses doing two things at once, so the clothing is both protection against the cold and a reminder of the one who gave it.
The last line, "kinamu to zo omou," means "you will surely wear it, I think," with the particle "zo" closing in the attributive form "omou." Rather than voicing grief outright, the poem opens the book by placing its feeling in a gift, anticipating later poems of robes given at parting such as 860 and 863. The last poem of the book, 895, also sends a travel hunting robe as a keepsake, so the opening and close of the book answer each other through robe and keepsake.
- Author
- Ki no Tsurayuki
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- My ink-black sleeves I have lent to no sky above, and yet I cannot wring them dry enough— the dew keeps spilling down.
- Not thinking of myself, who lasts but until the dusk, to come to know the sorrow of the human world— that, too, is fleeting.
- Bound to be forgotten, yet on the Koshi road there stands Mount Return—and when, at what When-Again, shall I hope to meet that one once more?
- To the wings of geese flying northward far away, entrust your letters— superscriptions on the clouds, written on and never ceasing.