山里は人来させじと思はねど
訪はるることぞうとくなりゆく
訪はるることぞうとくなりゆく
- Roma-ji
-
Yamazato wa hito kosaseji to omowanedo towaruru koto zo utoku nariyuku
- English Translation
-
In the mountain village,
though I do not wish to keep
others from my door,
how the visits paid to me
grow ever fewer and far.
- Meaning
- In the mountain village, though I have no wish to keep people away, their visits grow ever fewer and farther between.
- Commentary
-
Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1660
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the third poem of the sequence on the heart of living in a mountain village. Though he has no wish to keep people away, visitors grow ever fewer. The headnote gives the topic as unknown and records nothing of the circumstances.
The author, continuing from the preceding poem, is Saigyō. Named Satō Norikiyo in lay life, he was a guard in the service of Retired Emperor Toba and took holy orders at the age of twenty-three.
The first line, "yamazato wa," presents the mountain village as the topic.
The second line, "hito kosaseji to," means "to keep people from coming." "Ji" expresses negative intention.
The third line, "omowanedo," means "though I do not think so." "Do" is adversative.
The fourth line, "towaruru koto zo," means "being visited." The particle "zo" stresses the dwindling of visits.
The last line, "utoku nariyuku," means "grows ever more distant." It closes the kakari-musubi of "zo" with the attributive form "nariyuku." Against the heart that longed for a friend in the preceding poem, it sings of the reality that even visitors fall away.
- Author
- Saigyō
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
-
Yamazato ni ukiyo itowan tomo mogana kuyashiku sugishi mukashi kataran
- Next Poem
-
Kusa no io o itoite mo mata ikaga sen tsuyu no inochi no kakaru kagiri wa