真袖持ち床うち掃ひ君待つと
居りし間に月かたぶきぬ
居りし間に月かたぶきぬ
- Roma-ji
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Masode mochi toko uchiharai kimi matsu to orishi aida ni tsuki katabukinu
- English Translation
-
With both of my sleeves
I swept the bed clean of dust
and sat waiting there
for you, and while I waited
the moon has sunk to the west
- Meaning
- With both my sleeves I brushed the bed clean, and while I sat waiting for you, the moon has sunk low in the sky.
- Commentary
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Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2667
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
Having swept the bed clean with both sleeves to await her lover, the speaker, a woman, laments that the moon has sunk toward the west and he has not come. The gesture of sweeping carries her joy and expectation, and the length of the night that passed in vain is entrusted to the moon in the final line.
This is one of the poems on the moon. Whereas the preceding poem compared waiting for a lover to waiting for the moon, this one shows the moon setting while she waits, measuring the length of her vigil by its motion.
The author is unknown. The anonymous poems of Book Eleven gather love poems by people whose names have not come down to us.
First line, "masode mochi": "with both sleeves." "Ma" is a prefix meaning complete or paired.
Second line, "toko uchiharai": "brushing the bed clean." It is a gesture of preparing to receive a lover, betraying the lift of her heart.
Third line, "kimi matsu to": "to wait for you." The particle "to" expresses her intention of waiting.
Fourth line, "orishi aida ni": "while I sat." "Shi" is the attributive form of the past auxiliary "ki," marking the time that went by in waiting.
Fifth line, "tsuki katabukinu": "the moon has declined." Ending with the perfective "nu," it conveys, through the moon alone, that the night grew late and no one came.
- Source
- Manyoshu
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