あしひきの山のあらしは吹かねども
君なき宵はかねて寒しも
君なき宵はかねて寒しも
- Roma-ji
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Ashihiki no yama no arashi wa fukanedomo kimi naki yoi wa kanete samushi mo
- English Translation
-
On the rugged hills
though the mountain storm-winds
do not blow at all,
on the night without you, love,
it is cold before it comes.
- Meaning
- Though no storm wind blows down from the mountains, the night without you is cold even before it begins.
- Commentary
-
Book Ten Winter Love Poems 2350
Headnote: "Love Expressed Through the Night"
This poem says that though no mountain storm is blowing, a night without the beloved feels cold in advance, and its headnote is "Love Expressed Through the Night." Finding the cause of the cold not in a storm but in the beloved's absence, it expresses the loneliness of sleeping alone as a coldness of heart. It is the poem that closes Book Ten; whereas 1812 at the head of the book rejoiced at spring's arrival on an evening of trailing haze, this one closes lamenting the beloved's absence in the cold of a winter night, so spring evening and winter night, joy and loneliness, echo each other at the book's beginning and end.
The first line, "ashihiki no," is a pillow word attached to "mountain."
The second line, "the mountain storm," names the wind.
In the third line, "fukanedomo," "ne" is the perfective of the negative and "domo" adversative: though it does not blow.
The fourth line, "the night without you," names the time.
In the last line, "kanete samushi mo," "kanete" means in advance and "mo" is exclamatory, closing the book with a lament at the cold of sleeping alone.
- Source
- Manyoshu
- Prev Poem
-
Waga yado ni sakitaru ume o tsukuyo yomi yoiyoi misemu kimi o koso mate