君が行き日長くなりぬ山尋ね
迎へか行かむ待ちにか待たむ
迎へか行かむ待ちにか待たむ
- Roma-ji
-
Kimi ga yuki ke nagaku narinu yama tazune mukae ka yukamu machi ni ka matamu
- English Translation
-
Since you went away
the days have grown long indeed—
shall I search the hills
and go out to meet you there,
or wait on and wait for you?
- Meaning
- Many days have passed since you set out on your journey. Shall I search the mountain paths and go out to meet you, or shall I simply keep on waiting?
- Commentary
-
Book Two Love Poems 85
Headnote: "Four poems composed by Empress Iwa no Hime in longing for the Emperor"
This is the opening poem of Book Two of the Man'yōshū and the first poem in its section of love poems. The Emperor has been away on a journey and has not returned, and the poem voices a heart torn between going out to meet him and waiting on. A section heading assigns it to "the reign of the Emperor who ruled from the Takatsu Palace at Naniwa," that is, Emperor Nintoku.
According to the headnote, this is the first of four poems Empress Iwa no Hime composed in longing for her husband, Emperor Nintoku. The sequence moves through a wavering heart: whether to go and meet him in this poem, then the wish to die, the resolve to wait until her black hair turns white, and finally the question of when her love will ever clear.
The author, Empress Iwa no Hime, was the daughter of Katsuragi no Sotsuhiko and the consort of Emperor Nintoku. The Kojiki and the Nihon shoki portray her as a fiercely jealous empress. The poems in this sequence are thought to have been composed by later poets and attributed to her.
A left note states that this poem appears in Yamanoue no Okura's Ruijū karin. Poem 90 of this book, by Princess Sotoori, shares the first and second lines with this poem and is placed here as a variant transmitted in the Kojiki.
In the first line, "kimi ga yuki," yuki is a noun meaning a journey or going out, and kimi refers to the Emperor. The poem begins, "your journey."
In the second line, "ke nagaku narinu," ke means days, and nu is the perfective auxiliary. The poem pauses after the second line, first stating firmly how long the waiting has lasted.
The third line, "yama tazune," means searching out the mountain paths. She imagines setting out herself for the distant mountain roads where the Emperor is.
In the fourth line, "mukae ka yukamu," ka is an interrogative binding particle that concludes in the attributive form of the auxiliary mu. It expresses her hesitation: shall I go to meet him?
In the final line, "machi ni ka matamu," machi ni matsu is an emphatic phrase meaning to wait and wait, and again ka is resolved by mu. The fourth and fifth lines are set as a pair, showing her torn between going and waiting.
- Author
- Empress Iwa no Hime
- Source
- Manyoshu
- Prev Poem
-
Aki saraba ima mo miru goto tsumagoi ni ka nakamu yama zo takanohara no ue
- Next Poem
-
Kaku bakari koitsutsu arazu wa takayama no iwane shi makite shinamashi mono o