語り継ぐからにもここだ恋しきを
直目に見けむ古へ壮士
直目に見けむ古へ壮士
- Roma-ji
-
Kataritsugu kara ni mo kokoda koishiki o tadame ni mikemu inishie otoko
- English Translation
-
Just from tales passed down
I am moved with love so much;
how must they have felt,
who saw her with their very eyes,
those young men of long ago?
- Meaning
- Even from the tales handed down I feel such longing; how much more the young men of old, who must have seen her with their own eyes!
- Commentary
-
Book Nine Elegies 1803
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "A poem composed on passing the grave of the Maiden of Ashinoya, with tanka"; envoy
Since hearing the tale is enough to stir such longing, the speaker imagines how deeply the men of old who saw the Maiden of Unai with their own eyes must have loved her. He gauges the legendary girl's beauty through his own feeling in a later age.
This is the second envoy to the long poem 1801 in this book. Following the preceding poem's feeling before the grave, this one turns to the hearts of the men who fought over her.
The author, Tanabe no Sakimaro, was a poet of the mid-Nara period, a clerk in the Office of Sake Brewing who served Tachibana no Moroe. This poem is taken from the Sakimaro Collection, and it is widely held to be his own work.
The first line, "just from tales passed down," echoes the long poem's "telling and remembering on."
The second line, "I am moved with love so much," uses kara ni, "merely by," and kokoda, "so much."
The third line, "how must they have felt," continues with the adversative o.
The fourth line, "who saw her with their very eyes," uses kemu for past conjecture.
The final line, "those young men of long ago?" ends on a noun. It answers the preceding poem's opening "in the days of old," leaving a lingering sense of the men's feelings.
- Author
- Tanabe no Sakimaro (from the Sakimaro Collection)
- Source
- Manyoshu
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