さすらふる我が身にしあれば象潟や
海人の苫屋にあまたたび寝ぬ
海人の苫屋にあまたたび寝ぬ
- Roma-ji
-
Sasurauru waga mi ni shi areba kisakata ya ama no tomaya ni amatatabi nenu
- English Translation
-
Since I am one
who wanders without a home,
at Kisakata,
in the rush huts of the fisherfolk,
many a journey's night I've slept.
- Meaning
- Since I am one who wanders with no settled home, many times on many journeys I have slept in the rush huts of the fisherfolk at Kisakata.
- Commentary
-
Book Ten Travel Poems 972
Headnote: "A travel poem, when he presented a hundred-poem sequence in the reign of the Horikawa-in."
This is the fourth of a sequence of poems on journeys along the sea. Being a wanderer, the speaker has slept many times in the rush huts of the fisherfolk at Kisakata, a journey roaming along a distant shore. According to the headnote, it is a travel poem composed when he presented a hundred-poem sequence in the reign of the Horikawa-in.
The author, Fujiwara no Akinaka, was an official and poet of the late Heian period. "Ason" is an honorific added to the names of those of the fourth or fifth rank.
The scene is a wandering journey, on the shore of Kisakata in Dewa Province.
The direct occasion is composing on the travel topic in the Horikawa Hundred-Poem Sequences, in which poets presented sets of one hundred poems in the reign of Emperor Horikawa.
The first line, "sasurauru," means "wandering without direction." It shows a traveler with no settled lodging.
The second line, "waga mi ni shi areba," means "since I am one." "Shi" is an intensive particle, and the realis form with "ba" gives the reason.
The third line, "kisakata ya," calls up Kisakata, a famous place in Dewa. The particle "ya" presents the place name with emotion. In the same form as "matsushima ya" in 933, it sings of a famous place on the distant northern coast.
The fourth line, "ama no tomaya ni," means "in the rush huts of the fisherfolk." Following "ojima no tomaya" in 933, huts by the sea become the traveler's lodging.
In the last line, "amatatabi nenu," "amatatabi" carries both "amata tabi," many times, and "amata tabi," many journeys. It closes with the perfective "nu." Following the preceding poem's days of longing for the capital, this poem too sings of a journey of many nights, and "ama," fisherfolk, in the fourth line echoes in sound with "amata."
- Author
- Fujiwara no Akinaka
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- The one at my home whom I left with my promise, like Sue's pine, must wait; on the sleeves of that waiting one might the waves be breaking now?
- Day by day goes on, and longing for the capital at Shinobu's bay I grow lonely; but the waves, no one ever comes to call.
- With the Naniwa folk, in a hut where reed fires burn I borrowed lodging, and for no reason at all my sleeves are drenched with brine.
- Whoever again crosses here and stops the night, know how moving it is: on the peak I broke and spread these oak twigs for my bed.