我が背子が使を待つと笠も着ず
出でつつぞ見し雨の降らくに
出でつつぞ見し雨の降らくに
- Roma-ji
-
Waga seko ga tsukai o matsu to kasa mo kizu idetsutsu zo mishi ame no furaku ni
- English Translation
-
Waiting to receive
a messenger from my lord,
without a hat
again and again I went out to look,
though the rain was falling
- Meaning
- Waiting for a messenger from my beloved, I went out again and again to look, without a hat, though the rain was falling.
- Commentary
-
Book Twelve Dialogue Poems 3121
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Dialogue Poems"
A woman sings of going out again and again in the rain, without a hat, to look for a messenger from her lover. Her eager waiting is portrayed through concrete actions, and the poem forms a question-and-answer pair with the next.
The poet is unknown. Book Twelve, titled the second part of "Love Poems Exchanged Old and New," gathers love poems by people whose names have not come down to us, arranged by category.
Line one, "waga seko ga," is a woman's word for the man she loves.
Line two, "tsukai o matsu to," means "waiting for his messenger."
Line three, "kasa mo kizu," means "without wearing a hat."
Line four, "idetsutsu zo mishi," means "I went out again and again to look," with "zo" concluded by the attributive "shi."
Line five, "ame no furaku ni," means "though the rain was falling," "furaku" being the nominalized form of "furu."
- Author
- Unknown
- Source
- Manyoshu
- Prev Poem
-
Imasara ni neme ya waga seko aratayo no hitoyo mo ochizu ime ni mie koso
- Next Poem
-
Kokoro naki ame ni mo aru ka hitome mori tomoshiki imo ni kyō dani awamu o