高照らす我が日の御子の万代に
国知らさまし島の宮はも
国知らさまし島の宮はも
- Roma-ji
-
Takaterasu waga hi no miko no yorozuyo ni kuni shirasamashi shima no miya wa mo
- English Translation
-
The Shima Palace,
whence our sun-bright prince on high
would have ruled the land
for ten thousand ages long—
O the Shima Palace now!
- Meaning
- O the Shima Palace, from which our high-shining prince, child of the sun, should have ruled the land for ten thousand ages!
- Commentary
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Book Two Elegies 171
Headnote: "Twenty-three poems composed in grief by the attendants of the Prince's palace"
The poem laments the future cut off by the prince's death, crying out to the Shima Palace from which he should have ruled the land for ten thousand ages.
According to the headnote, these are twenty-three poems composed in grief by the attendants who served in Prince Kusakabe's palace. A left note, citing the Nihon shoki, records that the prince died in the fourth month of the third year of Empress Jitō's reign (689). The sequence takes up, scene by scene, the laments of the attendants: the garden and ponds of the Shima Palace bereft of their master, and the night watches they kept on the hills of Mayumi and Sada where the prince lay in state. This is the first poem of the sequence.
The authors were the attendants who served in Prince Kusakabe's palace, and their individual names have not come down to us. Toneri were officials who served close to the Emperor and members of the imperial family as guards and aides. One theory holds that Kakinomoto no Hitomaro composed the poems in the attendants' voice, but this is not settled.
The first line, "takaterasu," is a pillow word for hi, "sun." The third poem of the sequence, 173, begins with the same line.
The second line, "waga hi no miko no," means "our prince, descendant of the sun goddess," referring to Prince Kusakabe.
The third line, "yorozuyo ni," means "for ten thousand ages."
In the fourth line, "kuni shirasamashi," shirasu is an honorific for ruling, and mashi is counterfactual: he would have ruled the land.
In the final line, "shima no miya wa mo," wa mo is an exclamation, closing with deep grief as it names the Shima Palace.
- Source
- Manyoshu
- Prev Poem
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Shima no miya magari no ike no hanachidori hitome ni koite ike ni kazukazu
- Next Poem
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Shima no miya ue no ike naru hanachidori arabi na yuki so kimi masazu tomo