Morokoshi mo ame no shita ni zo ari to kiku teru hi no moto o wasurezaranamu

English Translation

Cathay, too, I hear,
lies beneath the selfsame heaven—
so they say, and yet
the land beneath the shining sun,
this land, may you not forget.

Meaning

I hear that China, too, lies beneath the same heaven. Yet I pray you will not forget this land of the rising sun, beneath the sun that shines on us.

Commentary

Book Nine Parting Poems 871

Headnote: "Composed by his mother when the monk Jōjin went to China."
This is the first poem of a sequence on partings from those setting out on distant journeys. Though she hears that China lies beneath the same heaven, the mother asks her son, bound for China, not to forget Japan, the land beneath the shining sun. According to the headnote, it was composed by the mother of Jōjin when he went to China.
No author's name appears in the original, and since the headnote says "his mother," the author is Jōjin's mother, known as the Mother of Ajari Jōjin. She left a personal collection, the Jōjin Ajari no Haha Shū, recording her grief at parting from her son.
The scene is Jōjin's departure to cross to Song China, and the place is the capital.
The direct occasion was her son Jōjin's journey to China.
Jōjin was a monk of the Tendai school who crossed to Song China in the fourth year of Enkyū (1072), made pilgrimages to Mount Tiantai and Mount Wutai, and died there.

The first line, "morokoshi mo," refers to China. The particle "mo" carries the sense of "just like Japan," setting the distant foreign land alongside this one.
The second line, "ame no shita ni zo," means "beneath the same heaven," the particle "zo" giving strong emphasis.
The third line, "ari to kiku," closes in the attributive form "kiku" in response to "zo," and the poem breaks after this line. By telling herself that China lies beneath the same heaven, the mother tries to soften the distance of the parting.
In the fourth line, "teru hi no moto o," "hi no moto" plays on "beneath the shining sun" and "Japan." "Beneath heaven" in the second line answers "the shining sun," showing that while both lie under one heaven, the land where the sun rises is this one.
The last line, "wasurezaranamu," means "may you not forget," the final particle "namu" expressing a wish directed at another. Where the preceding poem says the time of reunion cannot be known, this poem does not speak of reunion but asks only that the homeland not be forgotten. Poems 863 and 864 are also partings from a monk going to China, so the feelings of those left behind appear twice in the book.

Author

Mother of Ajari Jōjin

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other