朝霧に濡れにし衣干さずして
一人や君が山路越ゆらん
一人や君が山路越ゆらん
- Roma-ji
-
Asagiri ni nurenishi koromo hosazu shite hitori ya kimi ga yamaji koyuran
- English Translation
-
In the morning mist
the robe you wore was soaked through,
and with it undried,
are you now all alone, love,
crossing over the mountain road?
- Meaning
- With your robe soaked by the morning mist and no time to dry it, are you crossing the mountain road all alone?
- Commentary
-
Book Ten Travel Poems 902
Headnote: "Topic unknown."
This is the seventh of a sequence of travel poems from the age of the Man'yōshū. The speaker worries for someone who has set out, wondering if the traveler is crossing the mountain road alone in a robe still wet with morning mist. The headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author is given as "anonymous," and the name is not known.
The scene is a morning spent thinking of one who has departed, from the side of the one left behind, imagining the traveler's mountain road.
The direct occasion is not recorded.
The poem is included in Book Nine of the Man'yōshū as a poem by an unknown author.
The first line, "asagiri ni," means "in the morning mist," conveying the chill damp of a traveler's morning.
The second line, "nurenishi koromo," means "the robe that was soaked." "Nishi" combines the continuative form of the perfective auxiliary "nu" with the attributive form of the past auxiliary "ki."
The third line, "hosazu shite," means "without drying it." One imagines the traveler hurrying on with no time to dry the wet robe.
The fourth line, "hitori ya kimi ga," means "are you, alone." The particle "ya" poses a question, answered by "ran" in the attributive form in the last line. The word "hitori" carries the loneliness of a journey without companions.
The last line, "yamaji koyuran," means "are you crossing the mountain road?" "Ran" conjectures about a present event out of sight, picturing the traveler from afar. Where "kyō ya koenan" in 906 speaks of the mountain crossing from the traveler's own side, this poem imagines it from the side of the one left behind, and the two form a pair viewing the same crossing from opposite positions.
- Author
- Unknown Poet
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- The bamboo grass leaves rustle all across the hills in wild disarray, yet I think only of my love, for I have come away from her.
- Here where I am now, where lies Tsukushi, I wonder? It seems to be there, beyond the mountains trailing white clouds, far away to the west.
- There in Shinano, from the peak of Asama the smoke rises up; could people both far and near see it and not wonder so?
- There in Suruga, by the slopes of Mount Utsu, in waking hours, nor even in my dreams at night, do I meet the one I love.