大君の境ひたまふと山守据ゑ
守るといふ山に入らずはやまじ
守るといふ山に入らずはやまじ
- Roma-ji
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Ōkimi no sakaitamau to yamamori sue moru to iu yama ni irazu wa yamaji
- English Translation
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Where our great sovereign
has set the bounds, they say, and
placed keepers of the hills,
the mountain that they guard—
I will not stop till I enter
- Meaning
- The mountain where, they say, our great sovereign has set the bounds and placed keepers to guard it—I will not rest until I enter it.
- Commentary
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Book Six Miscellaneous Poems 950
Headnote: "Four poems composed when the Emperor made a progress to the palace at Naniwa in the fifth year, the year of the Earth Dragon"
This poem declares that even a mountain whose bounds the sovereign has fixed and whose keepers stand guard will not keep the poet from entering. According to the headnote, this is one of four poems composed when Emperor Shōmu made a progress to the palace at Naniwa in Jinki 5 (728). None of the four is a poem praising the progress; all of them entrust feelings of love to mountains, jewels, pines and the like.
While taking the form of a resolve to enter a forbidden mountain, it is understood as a love poem that compares to the mountain a woman closely guarded by others, whom the poet is determined to win.
The left note reads, "The above poems appear among the poems of Kasa no Asomi Kanamura. Some say they were composed by Kurumamochi no Asomi Chitose." They were included in Kasa no Kanamura's collection, but there is also a tradition attributing them to Kurumamochi no Chitose, so the author remains undetermined. Both Kasa no Kanamura and Kurumamochi no Chitose were court poets who accompanied the sovereigns on their progresses from the reign of Empress Genshō to that of Emperor Shōmu.
The final line of this poem, "I will not stop till I enter," and that of the next poem, 951, "I will not stop till I take it," share the same form, "-zu wa yamaji," layering two figures, entering a guarded mountain and taking a jewel hidden among the rocks, to express the resolve to seek what is hard to reach.
The first line, "Where our great sovereign," names the emperor, conveying the weight of the authority that has the mountain guarded.
The second line, "has set the bounds, they say, and," means "since he has fixed its boundaries," with "tamau" as an honorific auxiliary. It tells that the mountain is a precinct forbidden by the sovereign's decree.
The third line, "placed keepers of the hills," means "setting mountain wardens." In the original it runs to six syllables, a hypermetric line, and it shows how strictly the mountain is guarded.
The fourth line, "the mountain that they guard," means "the mountain which, they say, is watched and kept," with "to iu," "they say," marking it as a forbidden place known by hearsay.
The final line, "I will not stop till I enter," means "I will not rest without entering," expressing a firm will. The strictness of the ban laid out through the second to fourth lines makes this resolve stand out all the more.
- Source
- Manyoshu
- Prev Poem
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Umeyanagi suguraku oshimi saho no uchi ni asobishi koto o miya mo todoro ni
- Next Poem
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Miwataseba chikaki mono kara iwagakuri kagayou tama o torazu wa yamaji