難波人芦火焚く屋に宿借りて
すずろに袖のしほたるるかな
すずろに袖のしほたるるかな
- Roma-ji
-
Naniwabito ashibi taku ya ni yado karite suzuro ni sode no shiotaruru kana
- English Translation
-
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.
- Meaning
- Taking lodging in a hut where the people of Naniwa burn reeds for their fires, I find my sleeves drenched with tears as if with brine, for no reason I can name.
- Commentary
-
Book Ten Travel Poems 973
Headnote: "On the heart of travel, for the hundred-poem sequences at the house of the Lay Priest Former Regent."
This is the fifth of a sequence of poems on journeys along the sea. Taking lodging in a hut where the people of Naniwa burn reeds, the traveler finds his sleeves wet with tears for no reason he can name, the sorrow of a humble lodging by the sea. According to the headnote, it was composed on the heart of travel for the hundred-poem sequences at the house of the Lay Priest Former Regent.
The author, "Master of the Empress Dowager's Household Shunzei," is Fujiwara no Shunzei. A poet of the late Heian and early Kamakura periods, he compiled the Senzai Wakashū and was the father of Fujiwara no Teika.
The scene is a night on a journey, in a house on the shore of Naniwa in Settsu Province.
The direct occasion is composing on the topic "the heart of travel" in the hundred-poem sequences at the house of the Lay Priest Former Regent Fujiwara no Kanezane.
The first line, "naniwabito," means "the people of Naniwa." Following 919, Naniwa is sung of as a place of lodging on a journey.
The second line, "ashibi taku ya ni," means "in a hut where reed fires burn." It shows the life of reed-thick Naniwa and reveals a humble lodging.
The third line, "yado karite," means "borrowing lodging." Like "yado o karigoromo" in 952, it sings of borrowing lodging, and here lodging is actually found.
The fourth line, "suzuro ni sode no," means "for no reason, my sleeves." It shows tears whose cause is not clear.
The last line, "shiotaruru kana," means "are drenched as if with brine." "Shiotaru" is a word associated with the sea, carrying both dripping with brine and wet with tears. Following the preceding poem on sleeping in the fisherfolk's huts, this poem also sings of lodging in a house of the people of the shore, and it is placed as a poem from the hundred-poem sequences at the house of Fujiwara no Kanezane, the author of 971.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Shunzei
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- All along the way I could not make out the smoke rising from Mount Fuji, for the sky gave not a moment of clearing all the while.