淡路の野島が崎の浜風に
妹が結びし紐吹き返す
妹が結びし紐吹き返す
- Roma-ji
-
Awaji no Nushima ga saki no hamakaze ni imo ga musubishi himo fukikaesu
- English Translation
-
On Awaji's shore,
at the point of Nushima,
the wind from the beach
sets the cord my dear one tied
fluttering and blowing back.
- Meaning
- In the sea wind at Cape Nushima on Awaji, the cord of my robe that my wife tied for me flutters and blows back.
- Commentary
-
Book Three Miscellaneous Poems 251
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Eight travel poems by Kakinomoto no Hitomaro"
This is the third of the eight travel poems. Seeing the cord of his robe, tied by his wife at his departure, flapping in the wind on Cape Nushima, the traveler thinks of the wife he left behind. Tying the cord was also a couple's pledge not to undo it until they met again. A celebrated poem that entrusts homesickness to the small scene of a cord in the wind.
The eight travel poems form a sequence tracing, place by place, a sea voyage west from Naniwa through the Inland Sea and back toward Yamato. The first of them, poem 249, has a lower half whose reading is unresolved.
The poet, Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, was a court poet active from the reign of Jitō to that of Monmu. Master of both long and short poems, he was later revered as the "Saint of Poetry." His rank was low, and much of his life remains obscure.
First line "On Awaji's shore" has only four syllables. It names Awaji Island, taking up where the previous poem arrived.
Second line "at the point of Nushima" repeats the place named in the previous poem's fourth line.
Third line "the wind from the beach" is the sea wind striking the cape, hinting at the hardships of travel.
Fourth line "the cord my dear one tied": imo means wife, and shi, the past attributive, shows she tied it at his departure.
Fifth line "fluttering and blowing back" pictures the cord flapping in the wind, overlaid with his longing for her.
- Author
- Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
- Source
- Manyoshu
- Prev Poem
-
Tamamo karu Minume o sugite natsukusa no Nushima ga saki ni fune chikazukinu
- Next Poem
-
Aratae no Fujie no ura ni suzuki tsuru ama to ka miramu tabi yuku ware o