ほととぎす声待つほどは遠からで
忍びに鳴くを聞かぬなるらん
忍びに鳴くを聞かぬなるらん
- Roma-ji
-
Hototogisu koe matsu hodo wa tōkarade shinobi ni naku o kikanu naruran
- English Translation
-
The cuckoo's voice,
the time you wait for it is
not so very far;
it sings in secret, softly,
and you, it seems, do not hear
- Meaning
- The time you wait for the cuckoo's voice is not so long—it sings in secret, softly, and it must be you who do not hear.
- Commentary
-
Book Four Summer Poems 150
Headnote: "Reply."
The friend reproached in the preceding poem for sending no word replies that the wait for the cuckoo's voice is not long, and that it sings softly in secret while she simply fails to hear. He lightly turns aside her reproach, implying that his own feelings are quietly there.
It forms an exchange with the preceding poem, 149.
The poet is listed as "anonymous," and the composer's name has not come down to us. The text gives the author as "yomibito mo," but it is treated here as anonymous.
The first line, "Hototogisu," is placed first as in the preceding poem, giving the exchange a matching form.
The second line, "koe matsu hodo wa," means "while waiting for its voice," taking up "machidō ni" in the preceding poem.
In the third line, "de" is a negative conjunctive particle: "not being far." Against "machidō ni" and "chika nagara" in the preceding poem, it answers that the time is not far off.
The fourth line, "shinobi ni naku o," means "that it sings in secret," drawing on shinobine, the hushed, low song of the cuckoo in early summer.
The last line, "kikanu naruran," means "it must be that you do not hear," with "ran" as conjecture. It turns "koe no kikoenu" in the preceding poem around: it is not that no voice is heard, but that she does not listen.
- Author
- Unknown Poet
- Source
- Gosen Wakashu
- Prev Poem
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Hototogisu kiiru kakine wa chika nagara machidō ni nomi koe no kikoenu
- Next Poem
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Urameshiki kimi ga kakine no u no hana wa ushi to mitsutsu mo nao tanomu kana