郭公ねぐらながらの声聞けば
草の枕ぞ露けかりける
草の枕ぞ露けかりける
- Roma-ji
-
Hototogisu negura nagara no koe kikeba kusa no makura zo tsuyukekarikeru
- English Translation
-
When I hear the cuckoo
calling while it still remains
within its roosting place,
my pillow of grass, I find,
is wet through with the dew.
- Meaning
- When I hear the cuckoo calling while still on its roost, my traveler's pillow of grass is wet with dew.
- Commentary
-
Book Six Parting Poems 344
Headnote: "On hearing a cuckoo calling from a grove at dawn as I was returning after a purification at Naniwa"
At dawn on the way home from a journey, hearing a cuckoo calling while still on its roost, the poet says her traveler's grass pillow is wet with the dew of tears. Onto the voice of a bird calling from its own nest she lays the forlornness of one sleeping on the road away from home. According to the headnote, it was composed at dawn on the way back from a purification at Naniwa, on hearing a cuckoo calling in a grove.
Ise was a woman poet of the early to mid-Heian period and a daughter of Fujiwara no Tsugukage. She served Onshi, consort of Emperor Uda, and became the mother of Nakatsukasa. She is counted among the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets.
First line, "hototogisu," is the cuckoo, a summer bird whose call at dawn or night was much loved.
Second line, "negura nagara no," means "while still on its roost," the bird calling before leaving its nest.
Third line, "koe kikeba," means "when I hear its voice."
Fourth line, "kusa no makura zo," means "my pillow on the road," emphasized by the particle "zo." From this poem through 349, poems of sleeping on the road with "kusa no makura" and "kusamakura" continue.
Final line, "tsuyukekarikeru," means "how wet with dew it is," with "zo" resolved by the attributive "keru." It is the same as the final line of 308 in this book; there it was the dew on the sleeves of the one who sees another off, here the dew on the pillow of the one who travels.
- Author
- Ise
- Source
- Shui Wakashu
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Ame ni yori tamino no shima o wakeyukedo na ni wa kakurenu mono ni zo arikeru
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Kusamakura ware nomi narazu karigane mo tabi no sora ni zo nakiwataru naru