月影の入りぬる跡に思ふかな
迷はむ闇のゆくすゑの空
迷はむ闇のゆくすゑの空
- Roma-ji
-
Tsukikage no irinuru ato ni omou kana mayowamu yami no yukusue no sora
- English Translation
-
After the moonlight
has gone down behind the hills,
how my thoughts turn
to the darkness where I'll stray,
the sky of days to come
- Meaning
- After the moonlight has set, my thoughts turn to the sky of the future, a darkness in which I am bound to wander.
- Commentary
-
Book Sixteen Miscellaneous Poems I 1021
Headnote: "Topic unknown"
After the moonlight has set, I think of the sky of the future, the darkness where I shall stray, he says. Seeing the sky darkened after the moon has set, he imagines the darkness of the future in which he and others will wander in a world that has lost the light of the Buddha's teaching. Making moonlight a symbol of salvation, it is a contemplative poem on the unease that follows its loss.
The author, "Hōin Jien," was a son of Regent Fujiwara no Tadamichi. He trained on Mount Hiei and later served four times as head of the Tendai school. He wrote the historical work Gukanshō, and his personal collection is the Shūgyokushū. A poem of his is included in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.
It shares the theme of wandering in darkness with "sakidachishi hito wa yami ni ya mayouran" in 998 of this book. Where 998 thinks of the darkness in which the dead wander, this poem thinks of the darkness of his own future.
First line, "tsukikage no": "the moonlight."
Second line, "irinuru ato ni": "nuru" is the attributive of the perfective "nu," "after it has set."
Third line, "omou kana": "kana" is exclamatory, "how I think." The poem pauses here, and what follows is inverted.
Fourth line, "mayowamu yami no": "mu" is the conjectural auxiliary, "of the darkness where I shall wander." It answers "yami ni ya mayouran" in the second and third lines of 998 of this book.
Fifth line, "yukusue no sora": "the sky of what lies ahead," the future, ending in a noun.
- Author
- Jien
- Source
- Senzai Wakashu
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