山風に真屋の葦葺き荒れにけり
枕に宿る夜半の月影
枕に宿る夜半の月影
- Roma-ji
-
Yamakaze ni maya no ashibuki arenikeri makura ni yadoru yowa no tsukikage
- English Translation
-
By the mountain wind
the reed-thatched roof of my house
has been torn away,
and on my pillow lodges
the moonlight of midnight
- Meaning
- The mountain wind has ravaged the reed thatch of my gabled hut, and through it the midnight moonlight comes to lodge upon my pillow.
- Commentary
-
Book Sixteen Miscellaneous Poems I 1019
Headnote: "On the theme "The moon at a ruined house""
This poem was composed on the theme "the moon at a ruined house." The mountain wind has ravaged the reed thatch of my house, and the midnight moonlight lodges on my pillow, he says. The reeds of the roof are torn by the mountain wind, and through the gaps the moonlight slips in to reach his pillow; he sings of the forlornness of a ruined dwelling and of the beauty of the moon seen because of it.
The author, "Priest Kakuen," was a monk of the late Heian period whose biography is not known in detail.
Following the conceit of the moon lodging in a "grass hut" in the preceding poem, 1017, this one sings of the moon lodging on the pillow in a ruined house, so that poems of the moon lodging in a dwelling continue.
First line, "yamakaze ni": "by the wind blowing down from the mountains."
Second line, "maya no ashibuki": "maya" is a gabled house and "ashibuki" a roof thatched with reeds.
Third line, "arenikeri": "ni" is the continuative of the perfective "nu" and "keri" exclamatory, "it has fallen to ruin." The poem pauses here.
Fourth line, "makura ni yadoru": "lodging on my pillow," as moonlight slips through gaps in the roof. It answers "yadoru yo wa" in the third line of the preceding poem, 1017.
Fifth line, "yowa no tsukikage": "the moonlight of midnight," ending in a noun.
- Author
- Kakuen
- Source
- Senzai Wakashu
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