妹らがり今木の嶺に茂り立つ
妻松の木は古人見けむ
妻松の木は古人見けむ
- Roma-ji
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Imoragari imaki no mine ni shigeritatsu tsumamatsu no ki wa furuhito mikemu
- English Translation
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To my love's I come;
on the ridge of Imaki,
thick and tall it stands,
the wife-awaiting pine tree;
the men of old saw it too.
- Meaning
- The pine that stands thick on the ridge of Imaki, named for waiting for a wife, the people of old must have seen as well.
- Commentary
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Book Nine Elegies 1795
Headnote: "A poem at the site of the palace of Uji no Wakiiratsuko"
At the site of Uji no Wakiiratsuko's palace, seeing a pine standing thick on the ridge of Imaki, the speaker mourns the prince, reflecting that the people of old must have seen it too. Through the unchanging pine, he expresses feeling for a vanished age.
The section of elegies begins with this poem. Uji no Wakiiratsuko was a son of Emperor Ōjin who, it is said, yielded the throne to his elder brother, Emperor Nintoku, and took his own life. His palace was at Uji (present-day Uji, Kyoto). According to the left note, the five poems from this one to 1799 come from the Hitomaro Collection.
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, "to my love's I come," is a pillow word for Imaki, from ima ku, "now I come."
The second line, "on the ridge of Imaki," names the mountain at Uji.
The third line, "thick and tall it stands," describes the pine.
The fourth line, "the wife-awaiting pine tree," plays on matsu, both "pine" and "to wait."
The final line, "the men of old saw it too," uses kemu for past conjecture; the people of old center on Uji no Wakiiratsuko.
- Author
- Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
- Source
- Manyoshu
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