今はただ心のほかに聞くものを
知らず顔なる荻の上風
知らず顔なる荻の上風
- Roma-ji
-
Ima wa tada kokoro no hoka ni kiku mono o shirazugao naru ogi no uwakaze
- English Translation
-
Now I only hear
it as something far outside
my heart, and yet it
comes as if it didn't know,
the wind across the reed leaves.
- Meaning
- Now I hear it only as something that no longer touches my heart, and yet it blows as though it did not know, the wind across the reed leaves.
- Commentary
-
Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 1309
Headnote: "Topic unknown."
This is the sixth poem of the sequence on waiting for a lover, sung through the wind. Now I hear it with an indifferent heart, the speaker says, yet the wind across the reed leaves blows on as if it did not know. The headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author, "Princess Shikishi," was a daughter of Emperor Go-Shirakawa and served in her youth as High Priestess of the Kamo Shrines. She studied poetry under Fujiwara no Shunzei.
The first line, "ima wa tada," means "now only." It shows the heart of one who has now stopped waiting.
The second line, "kokoro no hoka ni," means "without heeding, with indifference."
In the third line, "kiku mono o," "mono o" is concessive: "though I hear it so." It takes up the sound of the wind that announced love's end in the preceding poem, now heard without heed.
The fourth line, "shirazugao naru," means "with a face that knows nothing of it." The wind is personified, unaware of the speaker's change of heart, still blowing like a visitor.
The last line, "ogi no uwakaze," is the same last line as Saigyō's poem, 1307. There the wind that came in place of a person was lamented; here, through the personification of a knowing-nothing face, the wind that should be heard with indifference still stirs the heart.
- Author
- Princess Shokushi
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
-
Waga koi wa ima o kagiri to yūmagure ogi fuku kaze no otozurete yuku
- Next Poem
-
Itsumo kiku mono to ya hito no omouramu konu yūgure no akikaze no koe