いつの間に霞立つらん春日野の
雪だに解けぬ冬と見しまに
雪だに解けぬ冬と見しまに
- Roma-ji
-
Itsu no ma ni kasumi tatsuran Kasugano no yuki dani tokenu fuyu to mishi ma ni
- English Translation
-
When did it happen,
that the spring haze rose up there?
On Kasuga's plain,
where even the snow had not melted,
I watched, thinking it still winter
- Meaning
- When did the haze rise over Kasuga Plain? All this while I gazed at it, thinking it a winter field where not even the snow had melted.
- Commentary
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Book One Spring Poems I 15
Headnote: "When a woman went into court service, at first, while she was new, various men spoke with her, but before long she gave herself to one of them; so around the first day of the First Month, this was sent to her."
The poet is startled that haze has somehow risen over Kasuga Plain, which he had taken for an unyielding winter field. Through the change of seasons, he wryly remarks that the woman he thought would open her heart to no one had, before he knew it, become one man's lover.
According to the headnote, when a woman entered court service, several men at first spoke to her, but she soon formed a bond with one man, and this poem was sent around the beginning of the First Month. The headnote suggests it was composed by one of the men who had courted her.
The poet is listed as "anonymous," and the composer's name has not come down to us.
The first line, "When did it happen," expresses surprise that something had moved forward unnoticed.
In the second line, "ran" is conjectural, asking when the haze rose. The rising haze is a figure for the woman's union with a man. The poem pauses here.
The third line, "On Kasuga's plain," names Kasuga Plain in Yamato, here a figure for the woman. Kasuga Plain also appears in this book in 8 and 13.
In the fourth line, "dani" means "even," so that "where even the snow had not melted" figures the woman as opening up to no one.
The last line, "I watched, thinking it still winter," means "while I took it for winter." The inversion stresses that it happened while he was off his guard.
- Author
- Unknown Poet
- Source
- Gosen Wakashu
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Moeizuru konome o mite mo ne o zo naku kare ni shi eda no haru o shiraneba
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