Tobikakeru ama no iwafune tazunete zo Akitsushima ni wa miya hajimekeru - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

飛びかける天の岩船尋ねてぞ
秋津島には宮はじめける

Roma-ji: Tobikakeru ama no iwafune tazunete zo Akitsushima ni wa miya hajimekeru
English Translation: Flying through the sky,
the rock-boat come down from heaven—
seeking where it lay,
here in Akitsushima
he first raised his palace hall.
Meaning: Seeking out where the heavenly rock-boat had flown down through the sky, he first built his palace here in the land of Akitsushima.
Commentary: Book Nineteen Poems on the Gods 1867

Headnote: "Tamayorihime."
This is the third poem in the sequence composed at the Nihongi banquet. Seeking the place where the heavenly rock-boat flying through the sky had come down, he first built a palace in Akitsushima. The headnote gives only the topic, "Tamayorihime"; like the preceding poem, it was composed at the Nihongi banquet. It tells of the founding of the realm, when Emperor Jinmu opened his capital in Yamato.
The author, Mimune no Masahira, was a scholar of the early Heian period.
The Nihon Shoki records that Emperor Jinmu, hearing that someone had descended in the east riding a heavenly rock-boat, set out eastward to fix his capital in that land.
The poem is about Jinmu's founding of the realm, and a note in some manuscripts gives Kamu-yamato-iwarebiko, the Emperor, as its actual topic. The topics of this poem and poem 1865 of this book appear to have been exchanged.

The first line, "tobikakeru," means "flying through the sky."
The second line, "ama no iwafune," is the heavenly rock-boat, a vessel as sturdy as stone in which a god was said to descend from heaven. It follows "yaegumo furiwakete" in the preceding poem, both telling of gods descending from heaven.
The third line, "tazunete zo," means "seeking where it lay." The particle "zo" is taken up in the last line.
In the fourth line, "Akitsushima ni wa," "Akitsushima" is an ancient name for Japan.
The last line, "miya hajimekeru," means "first built his palace," closing "zo" with "keru," the attributive of the past auxiliary "keri," in kakari-musubi. Telling of palace-building as the beginning of the realm, it moves on from the descent of the Heavenly Grandson in the preceding poem to Jinmu's founding, from the age of the gods to the age of humans.
Author: Mimune no Masahira
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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