天つ風雲の通ひ路吹き閉ぢよ
をとめの姿しばしとどめむ
をとめの姿しばしとどめむ
- Roma-ji
-
Amatsukaze kumo no kayoiji fukitojiyo otome no sugata shibashi todomemu
- English Translation
-
Winds of heaven,
blow shut the pathways
through the clouds,
that these maidens' forms
may linger here a while.
- Meaning
- O winds of heaven, blow the pathways through the clouds shut, so that I may keep the forms of these heavenly maidens here a little longer.
- Commentary
-
Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems I 872
Headnote: "Composed on seeing the Gosechi dancers"
Watching the Gosechi dances performed at court festivals such as the harvest rite, the poet likens the dancers to heavenly maidens and asks the wind to close their road back to the sky. His wish to watch the lovely dancers a little longer is joined splendidly to the heavenly world.
The author, "Yoshimine no Munesada," is Yoshimine no Munesada, later the archbishop Henjō. A grandson of Emperor Kanmu, he served Emperor Ninmyō and took holy orders at the emperor's death. He is one of the Six and the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals.
This poem is widely known as poem 12 of the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu. The Gosechi dance is said to derive from a legend that heavenly maidens descended and danced before Emperor Tenmu.
First line "amatsukaze": tsu is an old case particle, so the phrase means the wind of heaven; the poem opens by addressing the wind.
Second line "kumo no kayoiji" is the path through the clouds by which heavenly maidens travel between sky and earth.
Third line "fukitojiyo" is an imperative, and the poem pauses here.
Fourth line "otome no sugata" treats the dancers as heavenly maidens. The next poem, 873, also concerns the Gosechi, so the two stand together.
Fifth line "shibashi todomemu" uses the volitional auxiliary mu: "let me keep them for a while."
- Author
- Henjō
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
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