堀江漕ぐ棚無し小舟漕ぎ返り
同じ人にや恋ひわたりなむ
同じ人にや恋ひわたりなむ
- Roma-ji
-
Horie kogu tananashi obune kogikaeri onaji hito ni ya koiwatarinamu
- English Translation
-
Rowing Horie's stream,
a little boat without boards
rows back once again:
must I go on loving still
the very same one, always?
- Meaning
- Like a small plankless boat rowing back and forth along the Horie channel, must I keep returning to love the very same person, again and again?
- Commentary
-
Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 732
Headnote: "Topic unknown"
Just as a small boat plying the Horie channel rows back again and again, the speaker wonders whether he will go on loving the same person over and over without a change of heart. Using an everyday waterside scene as a preface, the poem overlays recurring love with the boat's comings and goings.
The closing "koiwatarinamu" echoes "koi ya wataramu" at the end of the head poem, 677, so that the opening thought of longing even while meeting returns near the book's end as a love that goes on for the same person. Taking up the preceding poem's longing for a lover of old, it leads into the next two poems.
The first line, "Horie kogu," means "rowing along the Horie," "Horie" being a dug canal; the Horie of Naniwa was famous.
The second line, "tananashi obune," is a small boat without planks along its sides.
The third line, "kogikaeri," overlays the boat rowing back and forth with "again and again"; up to here the lines form a preface.
The fourth line, "onaji hito ni ya," means "the same person," with the particle "ya" forming a kakari-musubi with "mu" in the last line.
The final line, "koiwatarinamu," means "must I go on loving?", the intensive "na" joined to the attributive form of the conjectural "mu." It answers "koi ya wataramu" at the end of the head poem, 677.
- Author
- Unknown Poet
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
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