霜冴えて小夜もながゐの浦寒み
明けやらずとや千鳥鳴くらん
明けやらずとや千鳥鳴くらん
- Roma-ji
-
Shimo saete sayo mo Nagai no ura samumi akeyarazu to ya chidori naku ran
- English Translation
-
With the frost so chill
and the night so long at Nagai,
the bay is cold indeed:
is it that dawn will not yet break
that makes the plovers cry?
- Meaning
- The frost is cold and clear, the night is long, and the bay at Nagai is chill; is it because dawn will not come that the plovers are crying?
- Commentary
-
Book Six Winter Poems 427
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed on plovers"
Composed on the topic of plovers. With the frost cold and clear, the night long, and the bay at Nagai chill, the poet asks, are the plovers crying because dawn will not come? In the cries of plovers unable to bear the cold of the long winter night he hears a heart longing for daybreak.
The author, "Hōin Jōken," was the son of Fujiwara no Michinori, known as Shinzei. A Tendai monk who rose to the rank of Hōin, he served close to Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa.
The five poems from 424 to 428 are poems on plovers. Plovers, crying along winter rivers and shores, were counted among the sights of winter.
First line, "shimo saete": the same first line as 401 of this book, the chill of the frost.
Second line, "sayo mo Nagai no": "nagai" is a pivot word joining "naga," the night being long, and Nagai Bay, a poetic place in Settsu Province.
Third line, "ura samumi": the suffix "mi" gives a cause, "because the bay is cold."
Fourth line, "akeyarazu to ya": "akeyarazu" is for the night not yet to have dawned fully, and the interrogative "ya" closes with the attributive "ran" in the last line.
Fifth line, "chidori naku ran": "ran" is the present conjecture. Where 425, two poems earlier, sings of plovers crying in regret at the dawn moon, this poem sings of plovers crying at a night that will not end, setting opposite feelings side by side.
- Author
- Jōken
- Source
- Senzai Wakashu
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Iwa koyuru araisonami ni tatsu chidori kokoro narade ya urazutau ran
- Next Poem
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Shimogare no Naniwa no ashi no honobono to akuru minato ni chidori naku nari