Osoroshi ya Kiso no kakeji no marukibashi fumi miru tabi ni ochinubeki kana - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

恐ろしや木曽の懸路の丸木橋
ふみ見るたびに落ちぬべきかな

Roma-ji: Osoroshi ya Kiso no kakeji no marukibashi fumi miru tabi ni ochinubeki kana
English Translation: How fearful it is!
On the cliff road of Kiso
the log bridge, each time
I step on it, read your letter,
I am sure that I will fall
Meaning: How frightening! Each time I step onto the log bridge on the cliff road of Kiso, each time I read your letters, I feel sure that I am about to fall.
Commentary: Book Eighteen Miscellaneous Poems III 1195

Headnote: "Composed and sent when, while I was in retreat at a mountain temple, a woman often sent me letters full of feeling"
He composed and sent this poem when, while he was in retreat at a mountain temple, a woman often sent him letters full of feeling. How fearful! Each time I step on the log bridge of the Kiso cliff road, I am sure to fall, he says. Playing "fumi," stepping on the bridge, against "fumi," a letter, he jokes that each time he reads the woman's letters he is about to fall into love despite his religious training, likening himself to someone on a precarious log bridge.
The author, "Kūnin Hōshi," was a monk of the late Heian period, but the details of his life are not known.
It is the sixteenth of the humorous poems.

First line, "osoroshi ya": "ya" is an exclamatory interjectory particle, and the poem pauses here.
Second line, "Kiso no kakeji no": Kiso is a place in Shinano known for its steep mountain roads, and "kakeji" is a path of planks laid along a cliff.
Third line, "marukibashi": a bridge of a single log laid across, sung of as perilous and hard to cross.
Fourth line, "fumi miru tabi ni": "fumi" plays on stepping onto the bridge and on a letter. It shares "fumi" with "fumi okoseyo to" in the fourth line of the preceding poem, 1194, and both play on stepping and letters in poems about letters between a monk and a woman.
Fifth line, "ochinubeki kana": "ochi" overlays falling from the bridge with falling in love and falling by breaking the precepts. "Nubeki" means "surely about to," and "kana" is an exclamatory final particle.
Author: Kūnin
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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