我が背子をならしの岡の呼子鳥
君呼び返せ夜の更けぬ時
君呼び返せ夜の更けぬ時
- Roma-ji
-
Waga seko o Narashi no oka no yobukodori kimi yobikaese yo no fukenu toki
- English Translation
-
O calling bird of
Narashi Hill, where my dear
husband came to visit,
call him, call him back to me
before the night grows too late.
- Meaning
- O calling bird of Narashi Hill, call my husband back to me before the night grows late.
- Commentary
-
Book Thirteen Love Poems III 819
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown"
The poem calls on the calling bird of Narashi Hill to call the husband back before the night grows late. In the calling bird, whose cry sounds like someone calling, it entrusts the wish to summon back a husband who has gone home or who has not come.
The author, "Yamabe no Akahito," is Yamabe no Akahito, a court poet of the Nara period ranked alongside Kakinomoto no Hitomaro and one of the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets.
A similar poem is included in Book Ten of the Man'yōshū.
First line, "waga seko o," means "my husband." It is the same line as the first line of the preceding poem, 818.
Second line, "Narashi no oka no," is a pivot word: "Narashi" is the Narashi Hill, a poetic place in Yamato, and "narashi," accustoming the husband to visit. It shares the sound "narashi" with the final line of the preceding poem, "yama no na narashi," and where that poem sings of a mountain, this one sings of a hill.
Third line, "yobukodori," is a bird whose cry sounds like someone calling, thought to be a kind of cuckoo.
Fourth line, "kimi yobikaese," means "call him back," a wish in the imperative, repeating "yobu," to call, from "yobukodori" in the third line, with a caesura here.
Final line, "yo no fukenu toki," means "before the night grows late," inverted to show the time of the wish in the fourth line.
- Author
- Yamabe no Akahito
- Source
- Shui Wakashu
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Konu hito o Matsuchi no yama no hototogisu onaji kokoro ni ne koso nakarure