我妹子が旅寝の衣薄きほど
よきて吹かなん夜半の山風
よきて吹かなん夜半の山風
- Roma-ji
-
Wagimoko ga tabine no koromo usuki hodo yokite fukanan yowa no yamakaze
- English Translation
-
My dearest one's robe,
worn while sleeping on the road,
is so very thin—
blow around her, I beg you,
mountain wind of midnight.
- Meaning
- The robe my beloved wears as she sleeps on the road is so thin; midnight mountain wind, I beg you, pass her by as you blow.
- Commentary
-
Book Ten Travel Poems 921
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed as a travel poem."
This is the second of a sequence of poems on the loneliness of sleeping on a journey. Because his beloved's robe is thin as she sleeps on the road, the speaker begs the midnight mountain wind to pass her by, caring for one who sleeps on a journey. According to the headnote, it was composed as a travel poem.
The author, Egyō, was a monk and poet of the mid-Heian period. He is one of the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals of the middle ages.
The scene is midnight during a night on the road, at a lodging in the mountains where the mountain wind blows.
The direct occasion is composing on the topic of "travel."
The first line, "wagimoko ga," means "my beloved's." "Wagimoko" is an affectionate term for a wife or lover.
The second line, "tabine no koromo," means "the robe for sleeping on the road." It takes up "tabine shite" in the preceding poem, continuing the word "tabine."
The third line, "usuki hodo," means "since it is so thin," thinking of that thinness.
The fourth line, "yokite fukanan," means "blow, avoiding her, I pray." "Nan" is a final particle expressing a wish directed at another, here a plea to the wind.
The last line, "yowa no yamakaze," means "the mountain wind of midnight." The one addressed comes last as a noun ending in inversion. Taking up "akikaze zo fuku" in the preceding poem, the poem now begs the wind not to blow, turning from receiving the wind to wishing it away. Where 911 is a wife at home imagining her husband sleeping on the shore, this poem imagines the beloved sleeping on the road, exchanging the one who thinks and the one thought of.
- Author
- Egyō
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- As the night grows late, across the tips of the reeds blows the wind from the bay, and adding to my sorrow comes the sound of breaking waves.
- Sleeping on my way, at the dawn I hear the cries of the stag, and then bending down the rice leaves low, the autumn wind comes blowing.
- Thatched with cut reed leaves, in a humble peasant's home in the mountain village, spreading one sleeve of my robe, I sleep here on my journey.
- In days that are gone, a journey was not at all a journey to me; now alone and wet with dew is this pillow made of grass.