野とならば鶉となきて年は経む
かりにだにやは君が来ざらむ
かりにだにやは君が来ざらむ
- Roma-ji
-
No to naraba uzura to nakite toshi wa hemu kari ni dani ya wa kimi ga kozaramu
- English Translation
-
If it becomes a moor,
I will spend the years as a quail
crying in the grass;
would you not come, if only
for a passing hunt, my love?
- Meaning
- If this place becomes a moor, I will live out the years as a quail, crying in the grass. Then surely you will come, if only for a moment, if only to hunt.
- Commentary
-
Book Eighteen Miscellaneous Poems II 972
Headnote: "Reply"
This is the reply of the woman of Fukakusa to Ariwara no Narihira's poem 971. If the village becomes a moor, she says, she will live as a quail, crying, and then surely he will come, if only briefly while hunting, showing her resolve to keep waiting.
Taking up Narihira's "will it become a moor" with "if it becomes a moor," it skillfully links the quail that lives on moors with hunting. The exchange also appears in section 123 of The Tales of Ise, where the man is moved by this poem and decides not to leave.
The author is recorded as anonymous; she was a woman living in the village of Fukakusa.
The first line, "if it becomes a moor," answers the last line of the previous poem.
The second line, "as a quail crying," contains the pivot word naki, both the quail's call and the woman's weeping. Quail are sung of as birds of overgrown moors.
The third line, "I will spend the years," expresses intention with mu; the poem breaks here.
The fourth line, "if only for a passing hunt," contains the pivot word kari, both "temporary" and "hunting." Ya wa is a rhetorical particle answered in the last line.
The last line, "would you not come," closes with the attributive mu after ya wa: "surely you will come."
- Author
- Unknown Poet
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
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Toshi o hete sumikoshi sato o idete inaba itodo fukakusa no to ya narinamu
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Ware o kimi naniwa no ura ni arishikaba ukime o mitsu no ama to nariniki