面影の忘れぬ人によそへつつ
入るをぞ慕ふ秋の夜の月
入るをぞ慕ふ秋の夜の月
- Roma-ji
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Omokage no wasurenu hito ni yosoetsutsu iru o zo shitau aki no yo no tsuki
- English Translation
-
Likening it to
one whose face I can't forget,
I find that I yearn
after it as it sinks away,
the moon of the autumn night.
- Meaning
- Likening it to the one whose face I cannot forget, I yearn after the autumn night's moon as it sinks away.
- Commentary
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Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 1265
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the tenth poem of the sequence of love poems on the moon. Likening it to one whose face she cannot forget, the speaker yearns after the autumn night's moon as it sets. As with the preceding poem, the headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances are not recorded.
The author, "Higo," was a lady-in-waiting and poet of the late Heian period, said to be a daughter of Fujiwara no Sadanari, Governor of Higo.
The first line, "omokage no," means "a face that rises before the eyes."
The second line, "wasurenu hito ni," means "to one whose face I cannot forget," a lover who can no longer be met.
The third line, "yosoetsutsu," means "likening it." The moon is seen as the figure of the beloved.
In the fourth line, "iru o zo shitau," "iru" is the setting of the moon, the same word as "iru kata wa" in the first line of Murasaki Shikibu's poem, 1262. "Zo" is an emphatic particle, and "shitau" closes in the attributive form. The yearning after a departing lover is laid over the setting of the moon.
The last line, "aki no yo no tsuki," ends on a noun, the inversion revealing at the very end what is yearned after. In a sequence that sees the beloved in the moon, the clear brightness of the autumn moon suggests how vivid that remembered face is.
- Author
- Higo
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
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Ima wa tote wakareshi hodo no tsuki o dani namida ni kurete nagame ya wa seshi
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Ukihito no tsuki wa nani zo no yukari zo to omoinagara mo uchinagametsutsu