山がつの片岡かけて占むる野の
境に立てる玉の緒柳
境に立てる玉の緒柳
- Roma-ji
-
Yamagatsu no kataoka kakete shimuru no no sakai ni tateru tama no oyanagi
- English Translation
-
A mountain peasant
all along the hillside slope
has staked out his field—
at its border there it stands,
the willow with threads like jewels.
- Meaning
- At the border of the field a mountain peasant has staked out along the slope of the hill stands a willow, its slender branches hanging like threads strung with jewels.
- Commentary
-
Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1677
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the third poem of the sequence on old fields and villages. At the border of the field a mountain dweller has claimed along the hillside stands a willow with branches like jewel threads. 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, "yamagatsu no," means "of a humble mountain dweller."
The second line, "kataoka kakete," means "along the hillside." Like the "kataoka" of 1634 in this book, it refers to a small hill near a mountain village.
The third line, "shimuru no no," means "of the field he has marked off as his own."
The fourth line, "sakai ni tateru," means "standing at its border," showing the willow serving as the mark of the field's boundary.
The last line, "tama no oyanagi," ends in a noun, closing on willow branches hanging slender like cords strung with jewels. Against the desolate old field of the preceding poem, the willow at a field's border shows traces of human labor.
- Author
- Saigyō
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
-
Furuhata no soba no tatsu ki ni iru hato no tomo yobu koe no sugoki yūgure
- Next Poem
-
Shigeki no o iku hitomura ni wakenashite sara ni mukashi o shinobikaesan