都にも今や衣をうつの山
夕霜払ふ蔦の下道
夕霜払ふ蔦の下道
- Roma-ji
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Miyako ni mo ima ya koromo o utsu no yama yūshimo harau tsuta no shitamichi
- English Translation
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In the capital
are they beating robes by now?
At Mount Utsu,
brushing off the evening frost,
the path beneath the ivy.
- Meaning
- In the capital, are they beating robes by now? At Mount Utsu, I brush off the evening frost along the path beneath the ivy.
- Commentary
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Book Ten Travel Poems 982
Headnote: "On the topic 'Traveling a mountain road in autumn' at a contest pairing Chinese poems with Japanese poems."
This is the third of a sequence of poems on dreams and sleeves on the road. Wondering whether they are beating robes in the capital by now, the speaker brushes off the evening frost on the ivy-shaded path of Mount Utsu, an autumn journey through the mountains. According to the headnote, it was composed on the topic "Traveling a mountain road in autumn" at a contest pairing Chinese and Japanese poems.
The author, "Teika Ason," is Fujiwara no Teika. A son of Fujiwara no Shunzei, he was a poet of the early Kamakura period and one of the compilers of the Shin Kokin Wakashū.
The scene is an autumn evening, on the ivy-shaded path of Mount Utsu in Suruga Province.
The direct occasion is composing on the topic "Traveling a mountain road in autumn" at a contest pairing Chinese poems with Japanese poems.
The first line, "miyako ni mo," means "in the capital too." It imagines the capital from the road.
The second line, "ima ya koromo o," means "by now, robes." The particle "ya" poses a question, thinking of autumn nights of beating cloth in the capital.
In the third line, "utsu no yama," "utsu" carries both "utsu," to beat robes, and Utsu, a famous place in Suruga Province. As with "koromo utsu naru" in 905, the fulling block is sung of as a sight of an autumn journey.
The fourth line, "yūshimo harau," means "brushing off the evening frost." It shows the cold of a mountain road in late autumn.
The last line, "tsuta no shitamichi," means "the path beneath the ivy," ending on a noun. It draws on Section 9 of The Tales of Ise, where the path of Mount Utsu is pictured as dark and narrow, overgrown with ivy and maples. Where the preceding poem sings of the path of dreams, this poem sings of the real road over the same Mount Utsu, setting the path of dreams beside the waking road.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Teika
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- Blow against my sleeves; surely I shall have no dreams sleeping on my way, you who come to me from where my heart longs, wind from the bay.
- As I sleep on the road, let my dreams go through, at least, Mount Utsu, I pray; I have never heard of a barrier here, and there is no guard to keep it.
- That upon my sleeve the moon should come to rest, I never promised, and yet— do my tears know why it is, this crossing of Mount Utsu?
- On Mount Tatsuta, see the sleeves of those who go through autumn's hills; it was not the passing showers that dyed the treetops red.