あさもよし紀人羨しも真土山
行き来と見らむ紀人羨しも
行き来と見らむ紀人羨しも
- Roma-ji
-
Asamoyoshi kihito tomoshi mo matsuchiyama yukiku to miramu kihito tomoshi mo
- English Translation
-
Where the hemp skirts please—
how I envy Kii's people!
Mount Matsuchi they
must see going and coming—
how I envy Kii's people!
- Meaning
- How I envy the people of Kii! They must see Mount Matsuchi every time they come and go—how I envy the people of Kii!
- Commentary
-
Book One Miscellaneous Poems 55
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Poems from the journey of the Retired Empress to Kii Province in the ninth month of autumn, in the first year of Taihō, kanoto-ushi"
Praising the beauty of Mount Matsuchi on the border of Yamato and Kii, the poet envies the people of Kii who can see the mountain each time they come and go. Repeating "how I envy the people of Kii" in the second and last lines in a song-like structure, it expresses praise of the land in a simple, bright cadence. The left note names the author as Tsuki no Obito Ōmi.
Tsuki no Ōmi was one of the attendants who followed Prince Ōama in the Jinshin War, and his name appears in the Nihon Shoki. He later rose to the senior fifth rank, upper grade.
The first line, asamoyoshi, "fine are the hemp skirts," is a pillow word for Kii, a land known for its hemp.
In the second line, tomoshi means enviable and mo is exclamatory: "how I envy the people of Kii!" The poem breaks here.
The third line names Mount Matsuchi on the border of Yamato and Kii, between present-day Gojō in Nara and Hashimoto in Wakayama—a memorable mountain for travelers crossing the border.
In the fourth line, yukiku to means "each time they come and go," and ramu is the attributive of present conjecture: "they must see it as they come and go."
The last line repeats the second line to close the poem. Where the preceding poem shaped its rhythm by repeating a sound, this one repeats an entire line, and the two poems set side by side both make use of repetition.
- Author
- Tsuki no Ōmi
- Source
- Manyoshu
- Prev Poem
-
Koseyama no tsuratsura tsubaki tsuratsura ni mitsutsu shinowana kose no haruno o
- Next Poem
-
Kawakami no tsuratsura tsubaki tsuratsura ni miredomo akazu kose no haruno wa