Furusato ni kaeramu koto wa asukagawa wataranu saki ni fuchise tagau na

English Translation

My return back home
will be tomorrow, so, Asuka,
you river, I pray,
before I have crossed you,
do not trade your pools for shoals.

Meaning

I will return home tomorrow, so, river Asuka, do not change your deep pools into shallows before I have crossed.

Commentary

Book Ten Travel Poems 986

Headnote: "Composed on a night when, returning from a pilgrimage to Hatsuse, he lodged by the Asuka River."
This is the second of the sequence that closes the book with thoughts of home and the capital. Since he will return home tomorrow, the speaker asks the Asuka River not to change its pools and shallows before he crosses, the feelings of the homeward road. According to the headnote, it was composed on a night when he lodged by the Asuka River on his way back from a pilgrimage to Hatsuse.
The author, Sokaku, was a monk and poet of the late Heian period.
The scene is a night on the way back from Hatsuse, on the banks of the Asuka River in Yamato Province.
The direct occasion is lodging by the Asuka River on the way back from Hatsuse.
It draws on an anonymous poem in the Kokin Wakashū, "In this world what is constant? The Asuka River: yesterday's pool is today a shoal," taking the ever-shifting pools and shoals of the Asuka River.

The first line, "furusato ni," means "to my home." Where the preceding poem declares there is no home, here the journey back home is sung of.
The second line, "kaeramu koto wa," means "that I shall return." It shows a heart on the road home.
In the third line, "asukagawa," "asuka" carries both "asu ka," "tomorrow," and the Asuka River in Yamato Province. The river's name tells that he returns tomorrow. It is the same land as the "village of Asuka" left behind by Empress Genmei in 896 at the head of the book, so that Travel Poems, which began with a journey leaving Asuka, arrives at a journey home from Asuka.
The fourth line, "wataranu saki ni," means "before I have crossed." It marks the time until tomorrow's crossing.
The last line, "fuchise tagau na," means "do not trade your pools for shoals." "Na" expresses a prohibition. Drawing on the old belief that yesterday's pool becomes today's shoal, it bids the river not to hinder his crossing home.

Author

Sokaku

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other