いにしへに妹と我が見しぬばたまの
黒牛潟を見れば寂しも
黒牛潟を見れば寂しも
- Roma-ji
-
Inishie ni imo to waga mishi nubatama no kuroushigata o mireba sabushi mo
- English Translation
-
Long ago with her,
my wife and I both gazed on
the jet-black-berried
shores of Kuroushi Bay,
and to see them now is lonely.
- Meaning
- Looking now at Kuroushi Bay, which my wife and I once saw together, how lonely it is.
- Commentary
-
Book Nine Elegies 1798
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Four poems composed in the province of Kii"
Looking alone at Kuroushi Bay, which he once saw with his wife, the speaker feels its loneliness. Before the same scene, he feels the absence of the one who shared it.
This is the third of the four poems composed in Kii in memory of a dead wife. Kuroushi Bay is the coast near Kuroe in present-day Kainan, Wakayama, and it also appears in 1672 in this book.
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, "long ago with her," refers to the past.
The second line, "my wife and I both gazed on," recalls their shared view.
The third line, "the jet-black-berried," renders nubatama no, a pillow word for black things, here the kuro of Kuroushi.
The fourth line, "shores of Kuroushi Bay," names the same place as the first line of 1672, but in contrast to the bright scene of that royal progress, it is here a place of mourning.
The final line, "and to see them now is lonely," takes the same form as the close of 1796, "to see it now is sorrow."
- Author
- Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
- Source
- Manyoshu
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