Kaku shite mo akaseba ikuyo suginuran yamaji no koke no tsuyu no mushiro ni

English Translation

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?

Meaning

Even living like this, passing night after night until dawn, how many nights have gone by on the mountain road, on the moss, on a mat of dew?

Commentary

Book Ten Travel Poems 949

Headnote: "For the Poetry Contest in Fifteen Hundred Rounds."
This is the fourth of a sequence of poems on the traveler's pillow. Having passed night after night like this, the speaker wonders how many nights have gone by on the mossy mountain road, lying on a mat of dew, nights of sleeping in the mountains. According to the headnote, it was submitted to the Poetry Contest in Fifteen Hundred Rounds.
The author, "Daughter of Shunzei, Master of the Empress Dowager's Household," is known as Shunzei's Daughter. A granddaughter of Fujiwara no Shunzei who became his adopted daughter, she was a lady-in-waiting and poet of the early Kamakura period.
The scene is successive nights of sleeping on the road in the mountains, on a mossy mountain road.
The direct occasion is the Poetry Contest in Fifteen Hundred Rounds held by Retired Emperor Go-Toba.

The first line, "kaku shite mo," means "even like this." It shows that she has kept on sleeping on the road, as on bare moss.
The second line, "akaseba ikuyo," means "passing night after night till dawn, how many." The realis form with "ba" looks back over the accumulated nights.
The third line, "suginuran," means "might have gone by?" The perfective "nu" joined to the conjectural "ran," the poem breaks after this third line. Where "ima ikuyo to ka" in 947 counts the nights still to come, here the nights already past are counted.
The fourth line, "yamaji no koke no," means "of the moss on the mountain road." Like "yamaji" in 924, it sings of a journey in the mountains wet with dew.
The last line, "tsuyu no mushiro ni," means "on a mat of dew." The moss is likened to a mat, and by inversion the place of sleep comes last. Where "sayomakura" in the preceding poem is a pillow wet with tears, this poem sings of a mat of moss wet with dew, widening the place of sleep from the pillow to the bed.

Author

Shunzei's Daughter

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other