天離る鄙にも月は照れれども
妹ぞ遠くは別れ来にける
妹ぞ遠くは別れ来にける
- Roma-ji
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Amazakaru hina ni mo tsuki wa tereredomo imo zo tōku wa wakarekinikeru
- English Translation
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Even here in the far lands
beneath the distant sky
the moon is shining,
yet from my love I have come
so far away apart
- Meaning
- Even here in the far country beneath distant skies the moon is shining, yet I have come so far away from my wife.
- Commentary
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Book Fifteen Poems of the Envoys to Silla 3698
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "On reaching Asaji Bay in Tsushima and anchoring there, we found no fair wind and stayed five days. Gazing on the beauty of the scenery, each expressed his grief in three poems"
He sings that even in faraway Tsushima the same moon shines as in the capital, yet he has come far away from his wife. Through the contrast between the moon that shines the same wherever one is and the wife now far removed, he feels the reality of the distance. The opening "amazakaru hina" is an expression also seen in 3608 of this book, recited as an old poem.
According to the headnote, this is one of three poems composed when the ship anchored at Asaji Bay in Tsushima, unable to find a fair wind and staying five days, during which each gazed on the scenery and expressed his grief. Asaji Bay is thought to be Asō Bay cutting into the middle of Tsushima. The author is not named.
First line, "amazakaru": far off as the edge of the sky, a pillow word for "hina."
Second line, "hina ni mo tsuki wa": "hina" is the provinces far from the capital, here Tsushima; "mo" means here too.
Third line, "tereredomo": "re" is the realis of the continuative "ri": though it is shining.
Fourth line, "imo zo tōku wa": "zo" is a binding particle resolved by the attributive "keru": far from my wife.
Fifth line, "wakarekinikeru": "ni" is perfective and "keru" exclamatory: I have come away, parted from her, answering "zo" in the fourth line.
- Source
- Manyoshu
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