風吹けば室の八島の夕煙
心の空に立ちにけるかな
心の空に立ちにけるかな
- Roma-ji
-
Kaze fukeba Muro no Yashima no yūkeburi kokoro no sora ni tachinikeru kana
- English Translation
-
When the wind blows,
at Muro no Yashima
the evening smoke:
in the sky within my heart
so it has risen up, ah
- Meaning
- As the evening smoke of Muro no Yashima rises when the wind blows, so my love has risen into the empty sky of my heart, leaving me restless and distracted.
- Commentary
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Book Eleven Love Poems I 1010
Headnote: "Sent to a woman."
This is the third poem of the sequence on the smoke of love. Through the evening smoke of Muro no Yashima rising in the wind, the poet sings of a love that leaves the heart restless and distracted. According to the headnote, it was sent to a woman.
The author, "Fujiwara no Korenari," was a son of Fujiwara no Masaki, Junior Controller of the Right. A close attendant of Emperor Kazan, he rose to Provisional Middle Controller of the Left and took the tonsure himself when the emperor renounced the world.
The first line, "kaze fukeba," means "when the wind blows," set as what sends the smoke rising.
In the second line, Muro no Yashima is a famed poetic place in Shimotsuke, said to be near the Ōmiwa Shrine in present-day Tochigi City. Vapor was said to rise there like smoke, and it became customary to sing of its smoke.
The third line, "yūkeburi," is smoke rising in the evening, and the first three lines form a preface leading to "tachi."
The fourth line, "kokoro no sora ni," means "with the heart in the air," overlaying the sky where the evening smoke rises with a restless heart.
The last line, "tachinikeru kana," overlays the rising of smoke with the rising of love, ending with the exclamatory "kana." After the smoke of Fuji in the two preceding poems, the smoke of Muro no Yashima, a poetic place of the east, is set here to close the smoke sequence.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Korenari
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
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Keburi tatsu omoi naranedo hito shirezu wabite wa fushi no ne o nomi zo naku
- Next Poem
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Shirakumo no mine ni shimo nado kayouran onaji Mikasa no yama no fumoto o