陸奥はいづくはあれど塩竈の
浦漕ぐ舟の綱手かなしも
浦漕ぐ舟の綱手かなしも
- Roma-ji
-
Michinoku wa izuku wa aredo shiogama no ura kogu fune no tsunade kanashi mo
- English Translation
-
Michinoku, yes,
has fine places everywhere,
but at Shiogama
the boats that row across the bay:
their tow-ropes, how they move me.
- Meaning
- Michinoku has fine places everywhere, but the boats rowing across Shiogama Bay, drawn on their tow-ropes, touch my heart most of all.
- Commentary
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Book Twenty Poems of the Bureau of Court Song 1088
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Songs of the East: Michinoku Song"
Michinoku has other fine places, the singer says, but the boats at Shiogama Bay, drawn along by their tow-ropes, move the heart most of all. A song in praise of the land, it shaped the later image of Shiogama as a poetic place name.
The Michinoku songs are folk songs of the province of Michinoku, today's Tōhoku region, forming the group of seven from poem 1087 to 1093. They are provincial songs taken up into court performance.
On the basis of this poem, Minamoto no Sanetomo composed "Would that the world might never change: how moving, the tow-rope of the fisherman's little boat rowing along the shore" (Shinchokusen Wakashū; Ogura Hyakunin Isshu).
The first line, "Michinoku," names the whole province, the starting point for narrowing the focus to one spot.
The second line, "wherever else there may be," uses do for concession.
The third line, "Shiogama's," names Shiogama Bay in Michinoku, today's Shiogama City, Miyagi. The next poem, 1089, also sets Shiogama in its third line, sharing the place name.
The fourth line, "the boats that row the bay," names the craft moving across the water.
The last line, "their tow-ropes move the heart," uses kanashi, dear and piercing, with the exclamatory mo.
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
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Abukuma ni kiri tachikumori akenu tomo kimi o ba yaraji mateba sube nashi
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Waga seko o miyako ni yarite shiogama no magaki no shima no matsu zo koishiki