Kita e yuku kari no tsubasa ni kotozute yo kumo no uwagaki kakitaezu shite

English Translation

To the wings of geese
flying northward far away,
entrust your letters—
superscriptions on the clouds,
written on and never ceasing.

Meaning

Entrust your messages to the wings of the wild geese flying north. Let the addresses on your letters, carried above the clouds, never cease.

Commentary

Book Nine Parting Poems 859

Headnote: "When someone with whom I had shared no shallow bond went away."
This is the third poem of the sequence seeing off people bound for distant provinces. The speaker asks that letters keep coming without end, entrusted to the wings of geese flying north. According to the headnote, it was composed on parting from someone with whom she had shared a deep bond.
The author was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tametoki, served Shōshi, empress of Emperor Ichijō, and wrote The Tale of Genji.
The scene is a parting as a close friend leaves for a distant place, and the place is not recorded.
The direct occasion was the parting from someone with whom she had shared a deep bond.
Entrusting letters to geese draws on the story of Su Wu of the Former Han, who, held captive by the Xiongnu, tied a letter to a goose's leg and so sent word back to Han.

The first line, "kita e yuku," shows the geese receding into the northern sky. The distance of the departing person is laid over the path of the geese.
The second line, "kari no tsubasa ni," presents the goose as a messenger bearing letters. It draws on the old story of geese carrying messages.
The third line, "kotozute yo," is an imperative meaning "entrust," and the poem breaks here. The break after the third line sets forth the plea for letters with force.
The fourth line, "kumo no uwagaki," means the address on a letter entrusted to geese passing above the clouds. The geese in the sky and the letter on earth are joined within a single phrase.
In the last line, "kakitaezu shite," "kaki" repeats the sound of "gaki" in "uwagaki" in the fourth line, and "kakitayu" means that letters stop altogether. Linking the sound from "writing" to "breaking off," the poem closes by wishing for letters that never cease. Where the preceding poem asks when the two will meet again, this poem asks for letters in the time they cannot meet.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other