巨椋の入江響むなり射目人の
伏見が田居に雁渡るらし
伏見が田居に雁渡るらし
- Roma-ji
-
Ōkura no irie toyomu nari imehito no fushimi ga tai ni kari wataru rashi
- English Translation
-
At Ōkura
the inlet rings with echoing cries;
like hunters lying low,
to the rice fields of Fushimi
the wild geese, it seems, cross over.
- Meaning
- The inlet of Ōkura is ringing with sound. It seems the wild geese are flying across to the rice fields of Fushimi.
- Commentary
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Book Nine Miscellaneous Poems 1699
Headnote: "Two poems composed at the Uji River"
Hearing sounds echo over the inlet of Ōkura, the poet infers that wild geese are crossing to the fields of Fushimi. It is a landscape poem full of the feeling of autumn, in which the geese's arrival is known by sound.
This is the first of two poems composed at the Uji River. The inlet of Ōkura belonged to Ogura Pond, which once spread across the southern Kyoto basin, and Fushimi is present-day Fushimi Ward in Kyoto. The next poem, 1700, also concerns wild geese, and geese continue through 1701 to 1703.
The author, Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, was a court poet active in the reigns of Jitō and Monmu. This poem is taken from the Hitomaro Collection, which is thought to contain both Hitomaro's own poems and poems by others that he gathered.
The first line, "at Ōkura," names the inlet.
The second line, "the inlet rings with echoing cries," uses nari, an inference from sound, and the poem pauses here.
The third line, "like hunters lying low," is a pillow word for Fushimi, from hunters who lie hidden in a blind, fusu.
The fourth line, "to the rice fields of Fushimi," names where the geese come down.
The final line, "the wild geese, it seems, cross over," uses the grounded conjecture rashi. With nari in the second line and rashi in the last, the poem infers unseen geese from what is heard.
- Author
- Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
- Source
- Manyoshu
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