故郷に聞きし嵐の声も似ず
忘れね人をさやの中山
忘れね人をさやの中山
- Roma-ji
-
Furusato ni kikishi arashi no koe mo nizu wasurene hito o saya no nakayama
- English Translation
-
The storm winds I heard
in my old home do not sound
anything like these;
forget the one you left behind,
here at Saya-no-Nakayama.
- Meaning
- The storm here sounds nothing like the storms I heard at home; forget the one you left behind, here at Saya-no-Nakayama.
- Commentary
-
Book Ten Travel Poems 954
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed as a travel poem."
This is the fifth of a sequence of poems on the road at nightfall and lodging for the night. The storm at Saya-no-Nakayama sounds nothing like the storms heard at home, and the speaker bids himself forget the one left behind, the thoughts of one who has come far on the road. According to the headnote, it was composed as a travel poem.
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 a journey, at Saya-no-Nakayama in Tōtōmi Province.
The direct occasion is composing on the topic of "travel."
The first line, "furusato ni," means "at my old home." It looks back on days spent at home.
The second line, "kikishi arashi no," means "of the storms I heard." The past "shi" calls up the memory of storms at home. Taking up "mine no arashi" in the preceding poem, the word "arashi" continues.
The third line, "koe mo nizu," means "their voice is not alike." The poem breaks after this third line; by the difference of the storm on the road from those at home, he knows how far he has come.
The fourth line, "wasurene hito o," means "forget that one." "Ne" is the imperative of the perfective "nu," strong words that try to cut the ties to home.
The last line, "saya no nakayama," is a pass in Tōtōmi Province, a famous place known as a hard stretch of the Tōkaidō. It ends on a noun, giving the place last. Where 940 asks the moon at the same pass to bring the image of home, this poem at the same place bids the speaker forget the one at home, showing longing for home in reversed form.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Ietaka
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- 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?
- The traveler's sleeves are blown back upon themselves by the autumn wind; lonely in the evening sun, the plank bridge along the mountain.
- Where the white clouds lie, how many ranges of peaks might I now have crossed, leaving my sleeves to the storm whose ways I have never known?
- Today once again on a plain I do not know night has overtaken me; from which of the mountains here will the moon rise into the sky?