限りなく結び置きつる草枕
いづこの旅を思ひ忘れん
いづこの旅を思ひ忘れん
- Roma-ji
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Kagiri naku musubi okitsuru kusamakura izuko no tabi o omoi wasuren
- English Translation
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Without any end
the vows I bound and left there,
pillow of grasses—
where, on what journey was it?
how could I forget that night
- Meaning
- That night of travel on a pillow of grass, where we bound vows beyond all measure—how could I ever forget it, as if I could not recall where that journey had been?
- Commentary
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Book Thirteen Love Poems III 1150
Headnote: "Sent the next morning after he had taken a woman he met in secret to a makeshift lodging and returned home."
This is the second poem of the sequence on the early days of a love affair. It is a morning-after poem sent when he had spent a night with a woman in secret at a temporary lodging and returned, vowing that he could never forget the night of travel in which they had bound deep vows.
The author, "Kentoku-kō," is Fujiwara no Koretada. The eldest son of the Minister of the Right Fujiwara no Morosuke, he rose to Regent and Chancellor. Kentoku-kō is the posthumous name given to him.
The first line, "kagiri naku," means "without limit." It uses the same word "kagiri" as "kyō o kagiri no" in the preceding poem; where that poem wished for a life ending with today, this one vows a bond without end. The same word yields a reversed correspondence.
The second line, "musubi okitsuru," means "that I bound and left." The custom of binding grasses into a pillow on a journey is overlaid with the sense of binding lovers' vows.
The third line, "kusamakura," refers to sleeping on a journey, here the night at the "makeshift lodging" of the headnote. The temporary lodging is likened to a journey.
The fourth line, "izuko no tabi o," means "the journey of where." The interrogative "izuko" answers to the last line.
The last line, "omoi wasuren," means "would I forget it? never," forming a rhetorical question with "izuko no" in the fourth line. He vows to the woman that a brief, makeshift meeting is a bond of travel he can never forget.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Koretada
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
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Wasureji no yukusue made wa katakereba kyō o kagiri no inochi to mo gana
- Next Poem
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Omou ni wa shinoburu koto zo makenikeru au ni shi kaeba sa mo araba are