水伝ふ礒の浦廻の岩つつじ
茂く咲く道をまたも見むかも
茂く咲く道をまたも見むかも
- Roma-ji
-
Minatsutau iso no urami no iwatsutsuji moku saku michi o mata mo mimu kamo
- English Translation
-
Where the water runs
along the rocky inlet's edge,
the rock azaleas
bloom so thick along the path—
shall I ever see them again?
- Meaning
- The path where rock azaleas bloom so thickly along the rocky inlet where the water trickles—shall I ever see it again?
- Commentary
-
Book Two Elegies 185
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Twenty-three poems composed in grief by the attendants of the Prince's palace"
Reluctant to part, the speaker wonders whether, once he leaves the palace, he will ever again see the path where rock azaleas bloom thickly along the garden pond.
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 fifteenth 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, "minatsutau," means "where water runs along," also regarded as a pillow word for iso, "rocks."
The second line, "iso no urami no," means "of the winding rocky edge" of the garden pond.
The third line, "iwatsutsuji," is the azalea that blooms among rocks.
In the fourth line, "moku saku michi o," moku means thickly: the path where they bloom in profusion.
The final line, "mata mo mimu kamo," means "shall I see it again?" and is the same as the final line of 146, the tied-pine poem in this book.
- Source
- Manyoshu
- Prev Poem
-
Himugashi no tagi no mikado ni saburaedo kinō mo kyō mo mesu koto mo nashi
- Next Poem
-
Hitohi ni wa chitabi mairishi himugashi no ōki mikado o irikatenu kamo