時鳥なほ初声をしのぶ山
夕ゐる雲の底に鳴くなり
夕ゐる雲の底に鳴くなり
- Roma-ji
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Hototogisu nao hatsukoe o Shinobuyama yū iru kumo no soko ni naku nari
- English Translation
-
The cuckoo, it seems,
still holds back its first song:
on Shinobu's peak,
deep within the evening clouds,
I hear it calling out
- Meaning
- Still holding back its first song, the cuckoo seems to be singing deep within the evening clouds that hang over Mount Shinobu.
- Commentary
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Book Three Summer Poems 157
Headnote: "Composed on the topic 'The Cuckoo in the Evening Sky'"
Composed on the topic "The Cuckoo in the Evening Sky." The cuckoo, still holding back its first song as if hiding its voice, sings deep within the evening clouds that hang over Mount Shinobu. Pivoting on "shinobu," both "to hide" one's voice and Mount Shinobu, a poetic place in Michinoku, the poem depicts a muffled first song heard from the depths of the evening clouds.
The author, "Prince-Priest of Ninnaji," is Prince-Priest Shukaku, second son of Emperor Go-Shirakawa, who entered Ninnaji and became its abbot. He loved poetry and had many poets compose hundred-poem sequences.
First line, "hototogisu": names the subject, the cuckoo.
Second line, "nao hatsukoe o": "nao" means "still," so "still its first song."
Third line, "Shinobuyama": a pivot word for "hiding" the first song and Mount Shinobu, a poetic place in Michinoku. "Shinoburu koro wa" in 150 of this book also depicts the cuckoo hushing its voice.
Fourth line, "yū iru kumo no": "iru" means clouds settling or hanging, "of the clouds that hang there in the evening," expressing the headnote's "evening sky."
Fifth line, "soko ni naku nari": "nari" expresses inference from sound. The next poem, 158, ends with the same "kumo no soko ni naku nari," so the two stand side by side sharing their closing line.
- Author
- Cloistered Prince Shukaku
- Source
- Senzai Wakashu
- Prev Poem
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Omoiyaru kokoro mo tsukinu hototogisu kumo no ikue no hoka ni nakuran
- Next Poem
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Kazakoshi o yū koekureba hototogisu fumoto no kumo no soko ni naku nari