雲隠り鳴くなる雁の行きて居む
秋田の穂立繁くし思ほゆ
秋田の穂立繁くし思ほゆ
- Roma-ji
-
Kumogakuri naku naru kari no yukite imu akita no hotachi shigeku shi omooyu
- English Translation
-
Hidden in the clouds,
the geese I hear crying there
will go down to rest
where the autumn rice stands thick:
so thick my thoughts crowd in
- Meaning
- Like the thick-standing ears in the autumn fields where the geese, crying hidden in the clouds, will go to settle, my thoughts crowd in thick and fast.
- Commentary
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Book Eight Autumn Miscellaneous Poems 1567
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Four autumn poems by Ōtomo no Yakamochi"
Like the thick-standing ears of the autumn fields where the geese crying hidden in the clouds will go to settle, the poet's thoughts crowd in thick and fast. Imagining where the geese will go and the scene of the ripening fields, he lays his ceaseless brooding over the dense rice ears. The note dates it to the ninth month of autumn, Tenpyō 8 (736).
The author, Ōtomo no Yakamochi, was a son of Ōtomo no Tabito and an official of the Nara period. He rose to the post of Middle Counselor, is thought to have been closely involved in compiling the Man'yōshū, and left more poems than anyone else in the anthology.
The first line takes up the third line of the preceding poem, carrying on the geese crying hidden in the clouds.
In the second line, "naru" is an auxiliary of inference from sound: "the geese I hear crying."
The third line means "where they will go to settle," imagining the geese's destination with the conjectural "mu."
The fourth line names the rice ears standing in the autumn fields; the first four lines form a preface leading to "thick."
The final line, with the emphatic "shi" and spontaneous "yu," expresses thoughts that crowd in without end.
- Author
- Otomo no Yakamochi
- Source
- Manyoshu
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