曇れかしながむるからに悲しきは
月におぼゆる人の面影
月におぼゆる人の面影
- Roma-ji
-
Kumore kashi nagamuru kara ni kanashiki wa tsuki ni oboyuru hito no omokage
- English Translation
-
Oh, cloud over, moon!
For as soon as I gaze up,
what brings me sorrow
is the face of that one person
that the moon brings back to me.
- Meaning
- Cloud over, moon! As soon as I gaze at you, what grieves me is the face of the one you call to mind.
- Commentary
-
Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 1270
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the fifteenth poem of the sequence of love poems on the moon. Let the moon cloud over, the speaker cries; what grieves me whenever I gaze is the face of that person the moon recalls. As with the preceding poem, the headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances are not recorded.
The author, "Takakura of Hachijō-in," was a lady-in-waiting to Hachijō-in, Princess Akiko, daughter of Emperor Toba.
In the first line, "kumore kashi," "kashi" adds insistence: "cloud over!" The poem breaks after the first line with a strong appeal to the moon. Where Saigyō in 1268 wore down a cloudless moon by his own doing, here the speaker wishes from the start for the moon to be clouded.
In the second line, "nagamuru kara ni," "kara ni" means "as soon as, merely by."
The third line, "kanashiki wa," means "what saddens me," leading into the noun of the last line.
In the fourth line, "tsuki ni oboyuru," "oboyu" means "to come to mind unbidden."
The last line, "hito no omokage," ends on a noun. Through inversion, she wishes the moon to cloud because gazing at it brings back that face; this turns the heart in the opposite direction from Higo in 1265, who yearned after the moon as the likeness of her beloved.
- Author
- Hachijoin no Takakura
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
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Mono omoite nagamuru koro no tsuki no iro ni ikabakari naru aware somuramu
- Next Poem
-
Wasuraruru mi o shiru sode no murasame ni tsurenaku yama no tsuki wa idekeri