嵐吹く峰の紅葉の日にそへて
もろくなりゆく我が涙かな
もろくなりゆく我が涙かな
- Roma-ji
-
Arashi fuku mine no momiji no hi ni soete moroku nariyuku waga namida kana
- English Translation
-
Like the autumn leaves
on the peak where storm winds blow,
with each passing day
ever more easily they fall,
these tears of mine, alas.
- Meaning
- Like the autumn leaves on the stormy peak, day by day my tears grow ever quicker to fall.
- Commentary
-
Book Eighteen Miscellaneous Poems III 1803
Headnote: "On autumn leaves, when composing a hundred poems of personal grievance."
This is the second of the poems expressing brooding through an autumn scene. As the leaves on the stormy peak fall more readily each day, so his tears come ever more easily. He entrusts the deepening of age and sorrow to leaves that fall ever more easily. According to the headnote, it was composed on autumn leaves in a hundred-poem sequence on personal grievance.
The author, "Kōtaigōgū no Daibu Shunzei," is Fujiwara no Shunzei. A son of Fujiwara no Toshitada, he compiled the Senzai Wakashū. He was the father of Fujiwara no Teika.
The first line, "arashi fuku," means "where storm winds blow."
The second line, "mine no momiji no," is the colored leaves of the peak's trees, taking up the leaves colored by the withering wind in the preceding poem.
The third line, "hi ni soete," means "as the days go by, day by day."
The fourth line, "moroku nariyuku," means "growing ever frailer, quicker to fall." A single word binds the leaves' readiness to scatter and the tears' readiness to spill.
In the last line, "waga namida kana," "kana" is exclamatory. Making the leaves a figure for tears, he laments a self that grows more tearful with the years.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Shunzei
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
-
Kogarashi no kaze ni momijite hito shirezu uki koto no ha no tsumoru koro kana
- Next Poem
-
Utatane wa ogi fuku kaze ni odorokedo nagaki yumeji zo samuru toki naki