人もなき空しき家は草枕
旅にまさりて苦しかりけり
旅にまさりて苦しかりけり
- Roma-ji
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Hito mo naki munashiki ie wa kusamakura tabi ni masarite kurushikarikeri
- English Translation
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With no one in it,
this empty and hollow house—
with grass for pillow,
more than any journey, oh,
how hard it has proved to bear!
- Meaning
- This empty house, with no one in it—it is harder to bear than any journey.
- Commentary
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Book Three Elegies 451
Headnote: "Three poems composed at once on returning to the house in the old home"
This is the first of three poems composed at once on arriving at his house in Nara. The empty house without his wife is harder to bear than any journey—the depth of loss felt only on coming home. What he foresaw before leaving Dazaifu in poem 440, "it will be harder than a journey," is here confirmed as lived experience: "it has proved hard."
The three poems composed on returning home are a sequence in which Tabito, back at his house in Nara, grieves at the home and garden without his wife. The headnote gives no author's name, but they continue the preceding five poems and are Tabito's work.
The poet, Ōtomo no Tabito, was a son of Ōtomo no Yasumaro. He served as Middle Counselor and Governor-General of Dazaifu before rising to Great Counselor, and died in Tenpyō 3 (731). Steeped in Chinese letters, he was at the center of a poetic circle with Yamanoue no Okura and others while serving in Tsukushi.
First line "With no one in it" refers to his wife's absence.
Second line "this empty and hollow house" means a house void and desolate.
Third line "with grass for pillow" is a pillow word for "journey."
Fourth line "more than any journey" is the same as the fourth line of poem 440.
Fifth line "how hard it has proved to bear": keri voices realization. The foreboding of poem 440 is here confirmed.
- Author
- Ōtomo no Tabito
- Source
- Manyoshu
- Prev Poem
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Yukusa ni wa futari waga mishi kono saki o hitori sugureba kokoro kanashi mo
- Next Poem
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Imo to shite futari tsukurishi waga shima wa kodakaku shigeku narinikeru kamo