豊国の鏡の山の岩戸立て
隠りにけらし待てど来まさず
隠りにけらし待てど来まさず
- Roma-ji
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Toyokuni no Kagami no yama no iwato tate komorinikerashi matedo kimasazu
- English Translation
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In Toyokuni,
on the mountain of Kagami,
the rock door is shut—
he has hidden there, it seems;
though I wait, he does not come.
- Meaning
- In Toyokuni, on Mount Kagami, he seems to have closed the rock door and shut himself away—however long I wait, he does not come.
- Commentary
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Book Three Elegies 418
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Three poems composed by Princess Tamochi when Prince Kafuchi was buried on Mount Kagami in the province of Buzen"
This is the second of Princess Tamochi's three poems. He seems to have closed the rock door of his tomb on Mount Kagami and shut himself inside, and no matter how long she waits, he does not come back—the sorrow of one who will never return. Calling the tomb's entrance a rock door overlays the myth of the Heavenly Rock Cave, leading to "the strength to break the rock door" in the next poem.
Princess Tamochi's three poems are a sequence of elegies for Prince Kafuchi, who died in Tsukushi as Governor-General of Dazaifu and was buried on Mount Kagami in Buzen.
The poet, Princess Tamochi, is thought to have been the wife of Prince Kafuchi, a woman of the early Nara period, but little is known of her.
First line "In Toyokuni" is the old name for Buzen and Bungo.
Second line "on the mountain of Kagami" is the same Mount Kagami as in the preceding poem's fourth line.
Third line "the rock door is shut": iwato likens the tomb's entrance to the door of a rock cave.
Fourth line "he has hidden there, it seems": kerashi is a grounded inference; the sentence breaks here.
Fifth line "though I wait, he does not come": kimasu is the honorific of "to come," ending in grief.
- Author
- Princess Tamochi
- Source
- Manyoshu
- Prev Poem
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Ōkimi no nikitama ae ya Toyokuni no Kagami no yama o miya to sadamuru
- Next Poem
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Iwato waru tajikara mo ga mo tayowaki omina ni shi areba sube no shiranaku