苔の庵さして来つれど君まさで
帰る深山の道の露けさ
帰る深山の道の露けさ
- Roma-ji
-
Koke no iori sashite kitsuredo kimi masade kaeru miyama no michi no tsuyukesa
- English Translation
-
To your mossy hut,
shut fast, I came seeking you,
but you were not there—
turning back, the mountain path,
how drenched it is with dew.
- Meaning
- I came seeking your moss-grown hut, but its door was shut and you were not there; how wet with dew is the deep mountain path as I turn back.
- Commentary
-
Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1630
Headnote: "Written on the door as I left, when I went to visit a holy man living deep in the mountains and found the door of his hut shut and no one there."
This is the first poem of an exchange on a mossy hut. The poet came seeking the mossy hut, but the holy man was not there, and the deep mountain path back is wet with dew. According to the headnote, he wrote it as he left, having visited a holy man in the deep mountains and found the hut shut and empty.
The author, "Egyō Hōshi," was a poet-monk of the mid-Heian period and one of the Thirty-Six Later Poetic Immortals.
The next poem, 1631, is the reply of the holy man who lived in the hut.
The first line, "koke no iori," is a humble hut grown with moss, the dwelling of a holy man secluded in the mountains. It is hypermetric, with six syllables.
The second line, "sashite kitsuredo," pivots on "sashi," both "making for" the hut and the door being "shut." "Tsuredo" is the perfective "tsu" with the adversative "do."
The third line, "kimi masade," means "you not being there." "Masu" is an honorific for "aru," "to be."
The fourth line, "kaeru miyama no," means "of the deep mountains through which I turn back in vain."
The last line, "michi no tsuyukesa," means "how wet with dew the path is." Ending on a noun, it entrusts the tears of one who turns back without meeting him to the dew of the mountain path.
- Author
- Egyō
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
-
Mi o ba katsu oshio no yama to omoitsutsu ika ni sadamete hito no iriken
- Next Poem
-
Arehatete kaze mo sawaranu koke no io ni ware wa naku tomo tsuyu wa moriken