Tabigoromo tachiyuku namiji tōkereba isa shirakumo no hodo mo shirarezu

English Translation

My traveling robe
is cut out for the sea road,
so far is the way,
who knows, like the white clouds, when—
I cannot tell the time at all.

Meaning

Setting out on the sea road, like cutting a traveling robe, I have so far to go that, who can say, like the white clouds, I cannot know when I will return.

Commentary

Book Ten Travel Poems 915

Headnote: "When he was going to China and someone asked him when he would return."
This is the second of a sequence of poems on distant journeys and travel by water. So far is the sea road ahead that, like the distant white clouds, he cannot tell when he will return, the mind of one about to cross the sea. According to the headnote, it was his answer when, about to go to China, he was asked when he would return.
The author, Chōnen, was a monk of Tōdaiji in the mid-Heian period. In Eikan 1 (983) he crossed to Song China and brought back an image of the Buddha Shakyamuni. "Hokkyō" is one of the ranks of the Buddhist clergy.
The scene is before his crossing to China, in Japan as he sets out.
The direct occasion is being asked when he would return.
The word "nittō" in the headnote means going to China.

The first line, "tabigoromo," means "a traveling robe." It leads into "tachi," setting up the related word "tatsu," to cut cloth.
The second line, "tachiyuku namiji," means "the sea road on which I set out." "Tachi" carries both "to set out" on a journey and "to cut" cloth for a robe, linking it with "tabigoromo" in the first line.
The third line, "tōkereba," means "since it is far." The realis form with "ba" gives the reason.
The fourth line, "isa shirakumo no," joins "isa shira," "who can say," with "shirakumo," "white clouds." White clouds stand for far distance, and following 901 and 906, they are once more sung of as the image of separation.
The last line, "hodo mo shirarezu," means "I cannot tell when." "Hodo" applies both to the time of return and to the distance of the clouds, and it links by that word to "kumoi to iishi hodo" in the preceding poem. Where 898, written in China, urges a quick return with "haya hi no moto e," this poem is from one setting out from Japan for China, and the outward and homeward crossings form a pair.

Author

Chōnen

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other