道の辺の草の青葉に駒止めて
なほ故郷を顧みるかな
なほ故郷を顧みるかな
- Roma-ji
-
Michi no be no kusa no aoba ni koma tomete nao furusato o kaerimiru kana
- English Translation
-
By the roadside here,
where the grasses are green,
I rein in my horse
and still, even now, look back
toward the home I left behind.
- Meaning
- Stopping my horse by the green grasses at the roadside, I find myself looking back once more toward my old home.
- Commentary
-
Book Ten Travel Poems 965
Headnote: "Composed on the road while going down to the East."
This is the first of a sequence of poems on scenes and thoughts along the road. Stopping his horse by the green grass at the roadside, the speaker still looks back toward home, the longing for home felt on the road to the East. According to the headnote, it was composed on the road while going down to the eastern provinces.
The author, "Minister of Popular Affairs Shigenori," is Fujiwara no Shigenori. A son of Fujiwara no Michinori, he rose to Minister of Popular Affairs, a noble of the late Heian period.
The scene is the road down to the East, at the roadside thick with green grass.
The direct occasion is composition on the road to the eastern provinces.
The first line, "michi no be no," means "by the roadside." It presents a scene on the road.
The second line, "kusa no aoba ni," means "by the green grass." Where the grass of the moor in the preceding poem is grass sought for a pillow, here it is roadside grass where a horse is stopped.
The third line, "koma tomete," means "stopping my horse." The gesture of halting on the road shows reluctance to go on.
The fourth line, "nao furusato o," means "still, toward home." "Nao" shows a heart that cannot let go of home even while pressing on.
The last line, "kaerimiru kana," means "I look back." It ends with the exclamatory "kana." The headnote of Narihira's 903 also reads "going to the East," and it too is a poem of the journey to the eastern provinces. Like 896 at the head of the book, which sings of lingering on leaving the village of Asuka, this poem sings of looking back toward home on the road of departure.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Shigenori
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- 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.
- Crossing Hatsuse's mountain as the evening fell, I asked for lodging; through the cypress groves of Miwa only the autumn wind blows.
- Even were it not, sleeping on an autumn road would be sad enough, and through the pines I hear it blow, the wind on Toko's mountain.