明けばまた越ゆべき山の峰なれや
空行く月の末の白雲
空行く月の末の白雲
- Roma-ji
-
Akeba mata koyubeki yama no mine nare ya sora yuku tsuki no sue no shirakumo
- English Translation
-
When the day has dawned,
is that the mountain peak
I must cross again—
there where the passing moon goes,
the white clouds that lie ahead?
- Meaning
- Is that the peak of the mountain I must cross again when day breaks, those white clouds that lie ahead of the moon as it travels across the sky?
- Commentary
-
Book Ten Travel Poems 939
Headnote: "When he presented a fifty-poem sequence."
This is the tenth of a sequence of poems on the moon seen on a journey. The speaker wonders whether the white clouds ahead of the moon crossing the sky are the peak he must cross again when day breaks, thinking of tomorrow's road. According to the headnote, it was composed when he presented a fifty-poem sequence.
The author, "Ietaka Ason," is Fujiwara no Ietaka. He was a poet of the early Kamakura period and one of the compilers of the Shin Kokin Wakashū.
The scene is late at night on a journey, at a lodging looking toward mountains where white clouds lie ahead of the moon.
The direct occasion is the presentation of fifty-poem sequences to Retired Emperor Go-Toba.
The first line, "akeba mata," means "when day breaks, again." The irrealis form with "ba" makes a supposition, looking ahead to the journey that will go on tomorrow.
The second line, "koyubeki yama no," means "of the mountain I must cross." Like "kyō ya koenan" in 906, it sings of a traveler facing a mountain to be crossed.
The third line, "mine nare ya," means "is it the peak?" "Ya" expresses a question, and the poem breaks after this third line.
The fourth line, "sora yuku tsuki no," means "of the moon crossing the sky." The direction of the moon's course is laid over the direction of the traveler's road.
The last line, "sue no shirakumo," means "the white clouds ahead," ending on a noun. By inversion, the white clouds taken for a peak come last. Following 901, 906, and 915, white clouds are sung of as the image of distance on a journey, and here, lying ahead of the moon, they show how far tomorrow's road still runs.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Ietaka
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- In the capital, when I thought the moon so moving, that feeling, I see, counted for nothing at all, a mere passing amusement.
- "When you see the moon"— so we promised as we parted; back in my old home, might that one tonight as well be wetting sleeves with tears?
- From my old home, bring the face of the one there today, come, lead it to me, so I bid the moon and pledge at Sayo-no-Nakayama.
- "I will not forget"— so we pledged as I set out, and my face, I think, must surely be seen there now in the moon above my home.