Furusato mo aki wa yūbe o katami nite kaze nomi okuru ono no shinohara

English Translation

My old home as well
in autumn keeps the evening
as its keepsake now,
sending only the wind to me
on the bamboo plain of Ono.

Meaning

My old home too must keep the autumn evening as its keepsake, for it sends me only the wind across the bamboo-grass plain of Ono.

Commentary

Book Ten Travel Poems 957

Headnote: "On the topic 'Evening on a journey' at a poetry contest of the Poetry Bureau."
This is the eighth of a sequence of poems on the road at nightfall and lodging for the night. Home too keeps the autumn evening as a keepsake, sending only its wind across the bamboo-grass plain of Ono, thinking of home in the wind of an evening on the road. According to the headnote, it was composed on the topic "Evening on a journey" at a poetry contest of the Poetry Bureau.
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 an autumn evening on a journey, on the bamboo-grass plain of Ono.
The direct occasion is composing on the topic "Evening on a journey" at a poetry contest held at the Poetry Bureau.

The first line, "furusato mo," means "my old home too." "Mo" shows the thought "home as well as the road."
The second line, "aki wa yūbe o," means "in autumn, the evening." Autumn evening has long been sung of as a time of brooding.
The third line, "katami nite," means "as a keepsake." It shows that the same autumn evening links distant home and the road.
The fourth line, "kaze nomi okuru," means "sending only the wind." No word comes from home; only the wind arrives. As with "tofu no urakaze otosenu ni" in 930, the absence of visits from home is shown through the wind.
The last line, "ono no shinohara," means "the bamboo-grass plain of Ono," ending on a noun. The scene of bamboo grass rustling in the wind shows the loneliness of dusk on the road. Following the nightfall on an unknown plain in the preceding poem, this poem also sings of dusk on a plain, the bamboo-grass plain.

Author

Shunzei's Daughter

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other