いにしへを思ひやりてぞ恋ひわたる
荒れたる宿の苔の石橋
荒れたる宿の苔の石橋
- Roma-ji
-
Inishie o omoiyarite zo koiwataru aretaru yado no koke no ishibashi
- English Translation
-
The days of long ago
as I think back upon them
I go on longing—
at the house fallen to ruin,
the mossy bridge of stone.
- Meaning
- Thinking back on days gone by, I go on longing for them—the moss-grown stone bridge of a house fallen to ruin.
- Commentary
-
Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1685
Headnote: "On a masterless house."
This is the second poem of the sequence on masterless houses and visits that have ceased. Seeing the moss-grown stone bridge of a ruined, masterless house, the poet goes on longing for the past. According to the headnote, it was composed on the topic of a house without a master.
The author, "Egyō Hōshi," was a poet-monk of the mid-Heian period and one of the Thirty-Six Later Poetic Immortals.
The first line, "inishie o," means "the days of long ago."
The second line, "omoiyarite zo," means "thinking back on them," strengthened by the particle "zo."
The third line, "koiwataru," means "I go on longing." The particle "zo" is closed by the attributive form "wataru," and the poem breaks here after the third line. "Wataru," "to go on" and "to cross," forms an associated word with the "stone bridge" of the last line.
The fourth line, "aretaru yado no," takes up the same words as "aretaru yado ni" in the fourth line of the preceding poem.
The last line, "koke no ishibashi," ends in a noun, closing on a moss-grown stone bridge no one crosses. The ceasing of those who cross the bridge shows the master's absence.
- Author
- Egyō
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
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Isonokami furinishi hito o tazunureba aretaru yado ni sumire tsumikeri
- Next Poem
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Wakuraba ni towareshi hito mo mukashi nite sore yori niwa no ato wa taeniki