誰住みてあはれ知るらん山里の
雨降りすさむ夕暮の空
雨降りすさむ夕暮の空
- Roma-ji
-
Tare sumite aware shiruran yamazato no ame furisusamu yūgure no sora
- English Translation
-
Who dwells there, I wonder,
and knows the depth of feeling—
in the mountain village
where the rain comes storming down,
the sky at the close of day.
- Meaning
- Who lives there, I wonder, knowing the depth of its feeling—the evening sky over a mountain village where the rain beats wildly down?
- Commentary
-
Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1642
Headnote: "Topic unknown."
This is the first poem of a sequence on the depths of mountain villages. Seeing the evening sky over a mountain village where the rain beats down, the poet wonders who lives there and knows its feeling. The headnote gives the topic as unknown and records nothing of the circumstances.
The author, "Saigyō Hōshi," was named Satō Norikiyo in lay life. A guard in the service of Retired Emperor Toba, he took holy orders at the age of twenty-three.
The first line, "tare sumite," means "who lives there."
The second line, "aware shiruran," means "knowing the deep feeling, I wonder?" "Ran" expresses present conjecture, and the poem breaks here after the second line. Like "sumade aware o shiran mono ka wa" in 1632 in this book, it links living in a place with knowing its feeling.
The third line, "yamazato no," shows the mountain village as the setting of that feeling.
The fourth line, "ame furisusamu," means "where the rain beats wildly down."
The last line, "yūgure no sora," ends in a noun, closing on a rainy evening when loneliness is keenest. 1605 in this book also closes with the same last line, "yūgure no sora."
- Author
- Saigyō
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
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