家風は日に日に吹けど我妹子が
家言持ちて来る人もなし
家言持ちて来る人もなし
- Roma-ji
-
Iekaze wa hinihi ni fukedo wagimoko ga iegoto mochite kuru hito mo nashi
- English Translation
-
The wind from my home
blows on day after day here,
yet of my dear wife
no word from home at all
does anyone bring to me
- Meaning
- The wind blowing from home comes day after day, yet no one comes bringing word from my wife.
- Commentary
-
Book Twenty Frontier Guard Poems 4353
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Poems of the frontier guards sent in rotation to the provinces of Tsukushi in the second month of Tenpyō Shōhō 7, year of the wood sheep."
The wind from home blows every day, yet no one brings word from my wife: the poem sings of the loneliness of waiting for news that never comes. The seventh poem from Kazusa, it contrasts the wind that arrives daily with the word that does not.
The author, Marako no Ōtoshi, is recorded as a regular guard from Asahina District in Kazusa; nothing more is known of him.
The first line, "iekaze wa," "the wind from home," shows him feeling his tie to home in the wind.
The second line, "hinihi ni fukedo," "though it blows day after day," turns concessively to the lower half.
The third line, "wagimoko ga," an affectionate name for his wife, names the sender he hopes for.
The fourth line, "iegoto mochite," uses iegoto, "word from home," repeating ie from the first line's iekaze.
The closing line, "kuru hito mo nashi," laments that no one comes bearing it.
- Author
- Marako no Ōtoshi
- Source
- Manyoshu
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