甲斐が嶺をさやにも見しかけけれなく
横ほり臥せる小夜の中山
横ほり臥せる小夜の中山
- Roma-ji
-
Kaigane o saya ni mo mishika kekere naku yokōri fuseru saya no nakayama
- English Translation
-
The peaks of Kai,
how I'd see them clear and plain,
but heartlessly
there it lies stretched across:
Sayo no Nakayama.
- Meaning
- I long to see the peaks of Kai clearly, yet there, heartlessly lying across my view, is Sayo no Nakayama.
- Commentary
-
Book Twenty Poems of the Bureau of Court Song 1097
Headnote: "Songs of the East: Kai Song"
Longing to see the mountains of Kai, the singer complains that heartless Sayo no Nakayama lies across the way and blocks the view. The wish to see one's home mountains is conveyed in a plain song that makes the mountain a person. No author is recorded.
The Azuma-uta, songs of the East, are folk songs of the eastern provinces taken into the court, arranged by province: Michinoku, Sagami, Hitachi, Kai and Ise.
The first line, "the peaks of Kai," refers to the mountains of Kai, such as the Shirane range. The next poem, 1098, begins with the same line, so two poems with a shared opening stand together.
The second line, "I would see clearly," uses shika for a wish; saya echoes Saya of the last line.
The third line, "heartlessly," uses kekere, the eastern dialect form of kokoro; the line has an extra syllable.
The fourth line, "lying stretched across," personifies the mountain as lying prone.
The last line, "Sayo no Nakayama," names the pass in Tōtōmi, today in Kakegawa City, Shizuoka, ending on a noun that names the target of the complaint.
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
-
Tsukubane no mine no momijiba ochitsumori shiru mo shiranu mo namete kanashi mo
- Next Poem
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Kaigane o nekoshi yamakoshi fuku kaze o hito ni mo gamo ya kotozute yaramu