あしひきの荒山中に送り置きて
帰らふ見れば心苦しも
帰らふ見れば心苦しも
- Roma-ji
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Ashihiki no arayamanaka ni okuriokite kaerau mireba kokorogurushi mo
- English Translation
-
In the rugged hills,
deep within the lonely mountains,
we have laid him down;
and to watch them all go home,
how it wrings my heart with pain.
- Meaning
- Having laid him to rest deep in the desolate mountains, when I watch the mourners going home, how my heart aches.
- Commentary
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Book Nine Elegies 1806
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "A poem composed in grief at the death of a younger brother, with tanka"; envoy
Having buried his brother in the desolate mountains, the speaker's heart aches as he watches the mourners go home. The pain of leaving his brother alone in the mountains is expressed through the scene of the funeral.
This is the second envoy to the long poem 1804 in this book. Following the despair of parting by death in the preceding poem, this one depicts a concrete scene of burial. According to the left note, the seven poems from 1800 to this one come from the Sakimaro Collection.
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, "in the rugged hills," renders ashihiki no, a pillow word for mountain.
The second line, "deep within the lonely mountains," names the desolate place of burial.
The third line, "we have laid him down," has six syllables, one more than the norm.
The fourth line, "and to watch them all go home," uses kaerau, with the continuative fu, for mourners leaving one after another.
The final line, "how it wrings my heart with pain," ends with the exclamatory mo.
- Author
- Tanabe no Sakimaro (from the Sakimaro Collection)
- Source
- Manyoshu
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