よそにのみ恋ひやわたらむ白山の
雪見るべくもあらぬ我が身は
雪見るべくもあらぬ我が身は
- Roma-ji
-
Yoso ni nomi koi ya wataramu Shirayama no yuki mirubeku mo aranu waga mi wa
- English Translation
-
Must I go on longing
from afar, and only so?
For the snows
of Shirayama are something
I can never hope to see.
- Meaning
- Must I go on longing for you only from afar? For I am one who can never hope to see the snows of Shirayama, where you are going.
- Commentary
-
Book Eight Parting Poems 383
Headnote: "Composed and sent to someone leaving for the province of Koshi"
Sent to someone going down to Koshi, the poem wonders whether the poet, who can never go to see the snows of Shirayama, must simply go on longing from afar. Picturing the famous sight at the traveler's destination, he laments the distance of a self that cannot go there.
The author, "Ōshikōchi no Mitsune," was Ōshikōchi no Mitsune, one of the compilers of the Kokinshū.
The first line, "from afar," means from a distant place, and the limiting nomi shows that he can only think of the other from that distance.
The second line, "must I go on longing," binds the particle ya with the conjectural mu to lament whether he will go on longing, and the poem breaks after this line.
The third line, "of Shirayama," sings of Shirayama, a famous place in Koshi. It treats the same mountain as poem 391 in this book, "Shirayama of Koshi," and the two show contrasting attitudes: the lament of one who cannot go to see it, and the resolve to follow the traveler's tracks through the snow.
The fourth line, "the snows I can never see," adds the particle mo to beshi of possibility, saying that he cannot even hope to see them.
The last line, "I, who am such," presents in inverted order the subject of the lament in the second line, and breaks off with waga mi wa, leaving a lingering resonance.
- Author
- Oshikochi no Mitsune
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
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Kaeruyama nani zo wa arite aru kai wa kite mo tomaranu na ni koso arikere
- Next Poem
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Otowayama kodakaku nakite hototogisu kimi ga wakare o oshimu beranari