死出の山麓を見てぞ帰りにし
つらき人よりまづ越えじとて
つらき人よりまづ越えじとて
- Roma-ji
-
Shide no yama fumoto o mite zo kaerinishi tsuraki hito yori mazu koeji tote
- English Translation
-
At the Mount of Death
I saw only its foothills
and came back again,
for I would not cross it first,
before one as cruel as you
- Meaning
- I only looked at the foot of the Mountain of Death and came back again, for I was not going to cross it before a heartless person like you.
- Commentary
-
Book Fifteen Love Poems V 789
Headnote: "When she had fallen ill, someone she knew did not visit her, but came to call after she had recovered, so she composed and sent this."
She sent this to an acquaintance who did not visit while she was ill but called after she recovered. Describing her brush with death as seeing the foot of the Mountain of Death and turning back, she retorts with irony and resentment that she came back because she would not die before someone so heartless.
The author, "Hyōe," is the daughter of Fujiwara no Takatsune, a lady-in-waiting for whom Hyōe was her court name.
The first line names the mountain the dead were thought to cross on the way to the underworld, the threshold of death.
The second line uses zo, resolved by shi in the third line: having seen only the foothills, meaning she came close to death.
In the third line nishi expresses completion and past: I came back. The poem breaks here.
The fourth line, "one who is cruel," is the person who did not visit, with yori marking comparison.
In the last line ji expresses negative intent and tote means "thinking," so: I would not go before you. By inversion it gives the reason for the third line.
- Author
- Hyōe
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
-
Tsure mo naku nariyuku hito no kotonoha zo aki yori saki no momiji narikeru
- Next Poem
-
Toki sugite kareyuku ono no asaji ni wa ima wa omoi zo taezu moekeru