都をば天つ空とも聞かざりき
何眺むらん雲のはたてを
何眺むらん雲のはたてを
- Roma-ji
-
Miyako o ba amatsu sora tomo kikazariki nani nagamuran kumo no hatate o
- English Translation
-
The capital, I
never heard, lay in the sky,
in the heavens high;
why then do I gaze so long
at the far edge of the clouds?
- Meaning
- I never heard that the capital lay in the heavens; why, then, do I keep gazing at the far edge of the clouds?
- Commentary
-
Book Ten Travel Poems 959
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "On the topic 'Evening on a journey' at a poetry contest of the Poetry Bureau."
This is the tenth of a sequence of poems on the road at nightfall and lodging for the night. Though she never heard the capital lay in the heavens, the speaker wonders why she keeps gazing at the far edge of the clouds, questioning herself as she looks toward the capital at dusk 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, Gishūmon-in no Tango, was a lady-in-waiting and poet of the early Kamakura period. She served Ninshi, consort of Emperor Go-Toba, later known as Gishūmon-in.
The scene is dusk on a journey, far from the capital.
The direct occasion is composing on the topic "Evening on a journey" at a poetry contest held at the Poetry Bureau.
The source poem is an anonymous love poem in the Kokin Wakashū: "At evening I brood at the far edge of the clouds, longing for one who dwells in the heavens." This poem takes from it the words "kumo no hatate" and "amatsu sora."
The first line, "miyako o ba," means "the capital." "O ba" marks the object strongly.
The second line, "amatsu sora tomo," means "as lying in the heavens." It takes "amatsu sora naru hito," the beloved in the heavens of the source poem, and applies it to the capital.
The third line, "kikazariki," means "I never heard." Closing with the past "ki," the poem breaks after this third line.
The fourth line, "nani nagamuran," means "why do I gaze?" "Ran" infers a cause, as she wonders at her own act. Where "koshiji no sora o nagametsutsu" in 914 gazes from the capital at a distant sky, here she gazes from the road at the sky toward the capital.
The last line, "kumo no hatate o," means "at the far edge of the clouds." The "kumo no hatate" that in the source poem is the gaze of a lover at evening is recast as the gaze of a traveler thinking of the capital at dusk. By inversion, what she gazes at comes last.
- Author
- Gishumon-in no Tango
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- 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.
- All to no avail rises the smoke of Asama in the evening light; I cannot ask where villages lie among the mountains far and near.
- Pillowed on the grass under the evening sky— should anyone ask, tell them though you cry to do it, voice of the first wild geese.
- Lying, I cannot sleep on this pillow made of grass, of cut bamboo leaves; how fleeting is the dew on just a single night.