岩が根の床に嵐を片敷きて
一人や寝なん小夜の中山
一人や寝なん小夜の中山
- Roma-ji
-
Iwa ga ne no toko ni arashi o katashikite hitori ya nenan sayo no nakayama
- English Translation
-
On a bed of rock,
the storm wind spread in the place
of a single sleeve,
must I sleep alone tonight
at Sayo-no-Nakayama?
- Meaning
- On a bed of rock, with the storm wind spread in place of a single sleeve, must I sleep alone tonight at Sayo-no-Nakayama?
- Commentary
-
Book Ten Travel Poems 962
Headnote: "On the topic 'A storm at a lodging on a journey' at the Iwashimizu poetry contest."
This is the thirteenth of a sequence of poems on the road at nightfall and lodging for the night. With a rock for a bed and the storm wind spread in place of a sleeve, the speaker wonders if he must sleep alone at Sayo-no-Nakayama, a harsh night on the road. According to the headnote, it was composed on the topic "A storm at a lodging on a journey" at the Iwashimizu poetry contest.
No author is named, and the poem continues from the preceding one as a work of Fujiwara no Arie. A son of Fujiwara no Shigeie, he was a poet of the early Kamakura period and one of the compilers of the Shin Kokin Wakashū.
The scene is a night of sleeping on the road, at Sayo-no-Nakayama in Tōtōmi Province.
The direct occasion is composing on the topic "A storm at a lodging on a journey" at a poetry contest held at Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine.
The first line, "iwa ga ne no," means "at the root of a rock." It shows the place of sleep in the mountains with no lodging.
The second line, "toko ni arashi o," means "the storm on my bed." It is a striking expression, placing the storm where a sleeve should be spread.
The third line, "katashikite," means "spreading as a single sleeve." Following "katashiku sode ni" in 929 and "katashiku mono wa" in 944, the "katashiku" of sleeping alone is sung of again, and here what is spread is the storm.
The fourth line, "hitori ya nenan," means "must I sleep alone?" Answering the particle "ya," "nan," the intensive "na" with the conjectural "n," closes in the attributive form.
The last line, "sayo 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. Following 954, which at the storm of the same pass bids the speaker forget home, this poem spreads the storm of the same place for a bed, and poems on the storm of Sayo-no-Nakayama are set one upon another.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Ariie
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- 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.
- With no one certain, an evening at an inn is my only pledge; how many nights will I call on a host who always changes?
- As my pillow now, with which of these grasses might I make my pledge? Going on as far as I can, evening on the moor.