月の色に心を清く染めましや
都を出でぬ我が身なりせば
都を出でぬ我が身なりせば
- Roma-ji
-
Tsuki no iro ni kokoro o kiyoku somemashi ya miyako o idenu waga mi nariseba
- English Translation
-
In the moon's pure hue
could I have dyed my heart
so clean as this, if
I had been one who never
ventured from the capital?
- Meaning
- Could I have dyed my heart so pure in the color of the moon, had I been one who never left the capital?
- Commentary
-
Book Sixteen Miscellaneous Poems I 1534
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the fourth poem of the sequence reflecting on oneself through the moon. Had he never left the capital, the poet asks, could he have dyed his heart so pure in the color of the moon? The headnote continues from the preceding poem, "topic unknown," and records nothing of the circumstances of composition.
The author, "Saigyō Hōshi," had the lay name Satō Norikiyo. He served Retired Emperor Toba as a warrior of the North Guard, but took the tonsure at twenty-three and traveled through the provinces, leaving many poems. No author's name is given in the text; the poem follows the author of the preceding poem.
The first line, "tsuki no iro ni," is hypermetric and refers to the color of the moonlight. It takes the pure light as a color that dyes the heart.
The second line, "kokoro o kiyoku," means "the heart, pure." It shows a heart free of worldly taint.
The third line, "somemashi ya," adds the rhetorical "ya" to the counterfactual "mashi," meaning "could I have dyed it?—surely not." The poem breaks after the third line.
The fourth line, "miyako o idenu," means "never leaving the capital." It implies, by contrast, Saigyō's own life of leaving the capital after taking the tonsure.
The last line, "waga mi nariseba," uses the counterfactual "seba," meaning "had I been such a one." Whereas the two preceding poems recalled the past through the moon, here he affirms the state of renunciation: it is precisely because he has left the capital that he can dye his heart pure in the moon's color.
- Author
- Saigyō
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
-
Yomosugara tsuki koso sode ni yadorikere mukashi no aki o omoiizureba
- Next Poem
-
Sutsu to naraba ukiyo o itou shirushi aran ware miba kumore aki no yo no tsuki