白雲のかかる旅寝も習はぬに
深き山路に日は暮れにけり
深き山路に日は暮れにけり
- Roma-ji
-
Shirakumo no kakaru tabine mo narawanu ni fukaki yamaji ni hi wa kure ni keri
- English Translation
-
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.
- Meaning
- I am not used to sleeping on the road like this, where the white clouds hang, and yet deep on the mountain path the day has drawn to its close.
- Commentary
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Book Ten Travel Poems 950
Headnote: "Composed while on a journey."
This is the first of a sequence of poems on the road at nightfall and lodging for the night. Though unused to such sleep on the road, where white clouds hang, the speaker finds the day ending deep on the mountain path, the unease of a traveler overtaken by nightfall in the mountains. According to the headnote, it was composed while on a journey.
The author, Eien, was a monk of Kōfukuji in the late Heian period who rose to Provisional Archbishop.
The scene is nightfall on a journey, on a deep mountain road.
The direct occasion is composition while on a journey.
The first line, "shirakumo no," means "the white clouds," leading into "kakaru." Following "sue no shirakumo" in 939, clouds hanging over the mountains are sung of again.
In the second line, "kakaru tabine mo," "kakaru" carries both white clouds "hanging" and "such" a sleep on the road. Sleeping on the road like this, high in mountains where white clouds hang, is shown in one word.
The third line, "narawanu ni," means "though I am not used to it." As "iso narenu" in 926 sings of a traveler unused to life on the shore, here a traveler unused to sleeping in the mountains is sung of.
The fourth line, "fukaki yamaji ni," means "on the deep mountain road." It shows mountains so deep that no lodging can be sought.
The last line, "hi wa kure ni keri," means "the day has come to its end." With the realizing "keri," it shows the unease of meeting night in unfamiliar mountains. Where the preceding poem looks back over nights accumulated on the mountain road, this poem meets nightfall on the mountain road, and from here poems on the road at nightfall and lodging follow.
- Author
- Yoen
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- 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?
- 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?
- In the evening sun crossing the plain of low reeds, that traveler there— ah, where will he find tonight a lodging for his rest?
- Where, oh where tonight shall I borrow a lodging, in hunting robes, the day, like its cords, tied to dusk, as the storm blows from the peaks?