かくしつつつひに泊まらむ蓬生の
思ひ知らるる草枕かな
思ひ知らるる草枕かな
- Roma-ji
-
Kaku shitsutsu tsui ni tomaramu yomogiu no omoishiraruru kusamakura kana
- English Translation
-
Going on like this,
in the end I shall come to rest
in a field of mugwort—
so this pillow of grass
makes me understand
- Meaning
- Going on like this, I will at last come to rest in a field overgrown with mugwort—this is what my pillow of grass makes me realize.
- Commentary
-
Book Eight Travel Poems 537
Headnote: "Composed on a night when, traveling about in ascetic practice, I lodged in the middle of a moor and the dew lay heavy on my pillow"
Composed on a night when, traveling in ascetic practice, the poet lodged in the middle of a moor and the dew lay heavy on his traveling pillow. Going on like this, I will at last come to rest in a field of mugwort—so my pillow of grass makes me realize, he says. On a pillow wet with dew in the open, he pictures the field where he will one day fall on the road and be buried, expressing an ascetic's resolve in the face of impermanence.
The author, "the Monk Engen," was a monk, the son of Fujiwara no Toshiyasu.
First line, "kaku shitsutsu": "going on like this," continuing his ascetic journey.
Second line, "tsui ni tomaramu": "tsui ni," "in the end," and "mu," the attributive of the conjectural, "where I shall finally stay," hinting at the place where life ends.
Third line, "yomogiu no": "yomogiu" is wild land overgrown with mugwort, suggesting the field where the dead are laid.
Fourth line, "omoishiraruru": "ruru" is the attributive of the spontaneous "ru," "I am made to realize."
Fifth line, "kusamakura kana": the exclamatory "kana," with the feeling that a grass pillow in the open foreshadows the field after death.
- Author
- Engen
- Source
- Senzai Wakashu
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