世を背く所とか聞く奥山は
もの思ひにぞ入るべかりける
もの思ひにぞ入るべかりける
- Roma-ji
-
Yo o somuku tokoro to ka kiku okuyama wa monoomoi ni zo irubekarikeru
- English Translation
-
The deep mountains, which
I had heard were places where
the world is renounced—
into brooding thoughts, it seems,
was where I should have entered.
- Meaning
- The deep mountains I had heard were the place to renounce the world—they were a place to enter into brooding, I find.
- Commentary
-
Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1639
Headnote: "When I was staying at a mountain temple."
This is the first poem of a sequence on mountains of renunciation. The deep mountains, said to be where one renounces the world, prove to be a place for entering into brooding. According to the headnote, it was composed while he was staying at a mountain temple.
The author, "Dōmyō Hōshi," was a son of Fujiwara no Michitsuna and served as superintendent of Tennōji. Known as a monk with a fine voice for chanting sutras, he was one of the Thirty-Six Later Poetic Immortals.
The first line, "yo o somuku," means "to renounce the world."
The second line, "tokoro to ka kiku," means "which I heard was the place." "Ka" is an interrogative particle, showing it is hearsay.
The third line, "okuyama wa," sets up as the topic the deep mountains where those who renounce the world retreat.
The fourth line, "monoomoi ni zo," means "into brooding." The particle "zo" stresses that it is for brooding, not for renouncing the world.
The last line, "irubekarikeru," closes the kakari-musubi of "zo" with "keru," the attributive form of the past "keri." Laying "entering" the mountains upon "entering" into brooding, it sings of a realization reached only after retreating. It takes up the brooding stirred by the garden pine wind of the preceding poem.
- Author
- Dōmyō
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
-
Warenagara omou ka mono o to bakari ni sode ni shigururu niwa no matsukaze
- Next Poem
-
Yo o somuku kata wa izuku ni arinubeshi ōharayama wa sumiyokariki ya