Wasurenamu yo ni mo koshiji no kaeruyama itsuhata hito ni awamu to suramu

English Translation

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?

Meaning

Though ours is a bond that will surely be forgotten, like the name of Mount Return on the Koshi road I would come back—yet when, as Itsuhata's name asks, shall I ever meet that person again?

Commentary

Book Nine Parting Poems 858

Headnote: "Topic unknown."
This is the second poem of the sequence seeing off people bound for distant provinces. Laying the ideas of returning and meeting again over the Echizen place names Kaeruyama and Itsuhata, the speaker wonders when she will meet the departed person once more. The headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tsugukage, governor of Ise, and a woman poet of the early Heian period who served Onshi, empress of Emperor Uda.
The scene is a parting from someone heading along the Koshi road, and the place is suggested through Kaeruyama and Itsuhata in Echizen, named in the poem.
The direct occasion is not recorded.
Kaeruyama is a poetic place name in Echizen, a mountain in what is now Minamiechizen in Fukui Prefecture, and it is sung with a play on "return." Itsuhata, also in Echizen, lies in present-day Tsuruga in Fukui Prefecture, and it is sung with a play on "itsu hata," meaning "when again."

The first line, "wasurenamu," means "surely one will forget." The perfective auxiliary "nu" in its irrealis form "na" joined to the conjectural "mu" opens the poem with resignation that forgetting cannot be avoided.
In the second line, "yo ni mo koshiji no," "yo" refers to the bond between people. "Koshiji" is the road to the northern provinces, the distant way the departing person takes.
The third line, "kaeruyama," is Mount Kaeru in Echizen, with a play on "return." Though the poem is about going far away, the place name calls up the idea of coming back.
In the fourth line, "itsuhata hito ni," "itsuhata" means "when again," with a play on the Echizen place name Itsuhata. Kaeruyama and Itsuhata are often paired as place names of Echizen.
The last line, "awamu to suramu," means "shall I seek to meet," the interrogative "itsu" closing in the conjectural "ramu." Where the preceding poem accepts parting through a robe given as a keepsake, this poem takes the form of a question about when the reunion will come.

Author

Ise

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other