松が根の雄島が磯のさ夜枕
いたくな濡れそ海人の袖かは
いたくな濡れそ海人の袖かは
- Roma-ji
-
Matsu ga ne no ojima ga iso no sayomakura itaku na nure so ama no sode ka wa
- English Translation
-
Beneath the pine roots
on the rocky shore of Ojima,
my pillow for the night,
do not be so drenched with tears—
are you a fisher's sleeve?
- Meaning
- Pillow for the night on the rocky shore of Ojima beneath the pine roots, do not be so drenched: you are no fisherman's sleeve.
- Commentary
-
Book Ten Travel Poems 948
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "When she presented a hundred-poem sequence."
This is the third of a sequence of poems on the traveler's pillow. The speaker bids her pillow for the night on the rocky shore of Ojima not to be so drenched, for it is no fisher's sleeve, a traveler's pillow wet with tears. According to the headnote, it was composed when she presented a hundred-poem sequence.
No author is named, and the poem continues from the preceding one as a work of Princess Shokushi. A daughter of Emperor Go-Shirakawa, she served as Kamo Priestess.
The scene is a night on the road, on the rocky shore of Ojima in Matsushima in Mutsu Province.
The direct occasion is the presentation of hundred-poem sequences to Retired Emperor Go-Toba.
The first line, "matsu ga ne no," means "among the pine roots." Like "matsu ga ne ni," the first line of 929, it shows sleeping at the roots of a pine.
The second line, "ojima ga iso no," means "on the rocky shore of Ojima" in Matsushima. Following "ojima no tomaya" in 933, the famous place Ojima in Mutsu is sung of again.
The third line, "sayomakura," means "pillow for the night," a traveler's pillow. "Sa" is a prefix that adjusts the rhythm.
The fourth line, "itaku na nure so," means "do not be so drenched." "Na ... so" expresses a prohibition, addressed to the pillow. It hints from the other side that the pillow is wet with tears.
The last line, "ama no sode ka wa," means "are you a fisher's sleeve? You are not." "Ka wa" is rhetorical. The sleeves of the fisherfolk of Ojima have long been sung of as sleeves drenched by the tide. After the preceding poem binds grass for a pillow, this poem sings of that pillow wet with tears, continuing the poems on the traveler's pillow.
- Author
- Princess Shokushi
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- Used though to the shore, my heart still will not ease on this rush pillow; do not break so wildly here, you white waves of the water.
- How much further on, how many more nights, who can say? At Iwashiro, among the roots of hillside grass, I will bind my pillow now.
- Even living so, passing night on night till dawn, how many have gone— on the mountain path's soft moss, on a mat of dripping dew?
- Where the white clouds hang, such sleep upon the road I have never known, and deep on the mountain path the day has come to its end.