かつ見れど疎くもあるかな月影の
至らぬ里もあらじと思へば
至らぬ里もあらじと思へば
- Roma-ji
-
Katsu miredo utoku mo aru kana tsukikage no itaranu sato mo araji to omoeba
- English Translation
-
Even as I gaze,
how distant it seems to me,
this moonlight,
when I think there is no village
it fails to visit too.
- Meaning
- Even as I look at it, the moon seems somehow distant to me, when I think there is no village its light does not reach.
- Commentary
-
Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems I 880
Headnote: "Composed when Ōshikōchi no Mitsune came to visit, saying the moon was lovely"
Composed when Ōshikōchi no Mitsune came to visit because the moon was lovely. Even while gazing at the moon, the poet feels it is distant, since its light reaches every village and is not his alone. Through the moon he also lightly teases Mitsune, who goes visiting everywhere, in the playful spirit of close friendship.
The author, "Ki no Tsurayuki," is Ki no Tsurayuki, son of Ki no Mochiyuki, the leading compiler of the Kokin Wakashū and author of its kana preface. He also wrote the Tosa Diary and is one of the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals.
Mitsune was also one of the compilers of the Kokin Wakashū and a close poetic friend of Tsurayuki.
First line "katsu miredo": katsu means "on the one hand, even as," so the sense is "even while looking."
Second line "utoku mo aru kana" closes with the exclamatory kana, and the poem pauses here. Calling the beloved moon "distant" is the wit of the poem.
Third line "tsukikage no" is moonlight; some read in it the figure of Mitsune, who came calling with the moon.
Fourth line "itaranu sato mo" speaks of a village the light fails to reach, saying indirectly that the moon shines everywhere.
Fifth line "araji to omoeba" joins the negative conjecture ji and the causal ba, giving by inversion the reason for the feeling.
- Author
- Ki no Tsurayuki
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
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Ōkata wa tsuki o mo medeji kore zo kono tsumoreba hito no oi to naru mono
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Futatsu naki mono to omoishi o minasoko ni yama no ha narade izuru tsukikage