野辺の露浦わの波をかこちても
行方も知らぬ袖の月影
行方も知らぬ袖の月影
- Roma-ji
-
Nobe no tsuyu urawa no nami o kakochite mo yukue mo shiranu sode no tsukikage
- English Translation
-
The dew of the fields,
the waves along the bays—
though I lay the blame,
not knowing where I am bound,
the moon shines in my wet sleeve.
- Meaning
- I may blame the dew of the fields and the waves of the bays for my wet sleeves, yet not knowing where my journey leads, I see the moon reflected in the tears upon my sleeve.
- Commentary
-
Book Ten Travel Poems 935
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "A travel poem from the fifty-poem sequences composed at the residence of Prince Shukaku."
This is the sixth of a sequence of poems on the moon seen on a journey. Though he blames the dew of the fields and the waves of the bays for his wet sleeves, the moon is mirrored in the tears on the sleeve of one who knows not where he goes, the grief of a journey across fields and shores. According to the headnote, it is a travel poem from the fifty-poem sequences composed at the residence of Prince Shukaku.
The author, Fujiwara no Ietaka, was a poet of the early Kamakura period. He was one of the compilers of the Shin Kokin Wakashū.
The scene is a night on a journey across fields and shores, on a road passing through fields and along bays.
The direct occasion is the travel topic in the fifty-poem sequences composed at the residence of Prince Shukaku. Prince Shukaku was a son of Emperor Go-Shirakawa and the abbot of Ninnaji.
The first line, "nobe no tsuyu," means "the dew of the fields," which wets the sleeves on a journey across the plains.
The second line, "urawa no nami o," means "the waves of the bays," which wet the sleeves on a journey along the shore. Set beside the fields of the first line, it pairs travel over land with travel by water.
The third line, "kakochite mo," means "even though I lay the blame on them." It hints from the other side that the true cause of the wet sleeves is tears.
The fourth line, "yukue mo shiranu," means "not knowing where I am bound." It shows the uncertainty of the traveler's lot.
The last line, "sode no tsukikage," means "the moonlight on my sleeve," ending on a noun. It ends on "tsukikage" like "ato no tsukikage," the last line of the preceding poem, and the two are set side by side. Taking up the drops from the trees on the mountain road in 924 and the white waves breaking over the hut in 926, the journey drenched by dew and waves is here gathered into a sleeve wet with tears.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Ietaka
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- Turning back again, I will come once more to see; at Matsushima, the rush huts of Ojima— let the waves not ruin them.
- Ask for me, I pray, plovers on the Okitsu shore where I left my heart, of the moonlight I left behind when I set out weeping so.
- Together we left, and that sky I cannot forget, though time goes by; above the capital's hills, the moon that lingered into dawn.
- In the capital, when I thought the moon so moving, that feeling, I see, counted for nothing at all, a mere passing amusement.