Furihaete hito mo toikonu yamazato wa shigure bakari zo sugigate ni suru - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

ふりはへて人も訪ひ来ぬ山里は
時雨ばかりぞ過ぎがてにする

Roma-ji: Furihaete hito mo toikonu yamazato wa shigure bakari zo sugigate ni suru
English Translation: To this mountain village
where no one troubles to come
and pay me a visit,
only the winter showers
seem loath to pass me by
Meaning: In this mountain village where no one goes out of their way to visit, only the showers seem reluctant to pass on by.
Commentary: Book Six Winter Poems 413

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed on winter showers when a hundred-poem sequence was presented in the reign of Emperor Horikawa"
Composed on the topic of winter showers for the Horikawa Hyakushu. In this mountain village where no one goes out of their way to visit, the poet says, only the showers stop by as if reluctant to pass on. By casting the showers that fall and pass again and again as visitors, she sets off all the more sharply the loneliness of a mountain village no one comes to.
The author, "Nijō Taikōtaigōgū no Higo," was a lady in the service of Princess Reishi, daughter of Emperor Shirakawa, known as the Nijō Grand Empress Dowager. She was one of the authors of the Horikawa Hyakushu.
The three poems from 411 to 413 are poems on winter showers from the Horikawa Hyakushu. In the Horikawa Hyakushu, poets such as Minamoto no Toshiyori and Fujiwara no Kinzane each composed a hundred poems on shared topics in Horikawa's reign, and it became the model for later hundred-poem sequences.

First line, "furihaete": "furihau" means to go out of one's way, and "furi" also suggests "fall," a word associated with showers.
Second line, "hito mo toikonu": "nu," the attributive of the negative "zu," "where no one comes to visit."
Third line, "yamazato wa": a village in the hills, away from the capital. The winter mountain village recurs in this book, as in 448, 457, 462 and 468.
Fourth line, "shigure bakari zo": "bakari" limits, and the emphatic "zo" closes with the attributive "suru" in the last line.
Fifth line, "sugigate ni suru": "gate ni" means "hardly able to," the showers loath to pass by, treated as if they were people.
Author: Nijō Taikōtaigōgū no Higo
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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