ひく船の綱手のながき春の日を
よそかいかまでわれはへにけり
よそかいかまでわれはへにけり
- Roma-ji
-
Hiku fune no tsunade no nagaki haru no hi o yosoka ika made ware wa henikeri
- English Translation
-
Like the long towrope
of the boat that we pull on,
long are these spring days—
forty, fifty of them now
I have passed upon this way
- Meaning
- Long as the towrope of the boat we haul along are these spring days—and I have spent forty, fifty of them on this journey.
- Commentary
-
40 The First Day of the Second Month: Hako Bay and the Towropes
On the first day of the second month, rain fell in the morning but stopped around noon, so the party set out from a place called Izumi-no-nada and rowed on. As on the previous day, neither wind nor waves could be seen on the sea. Passing the pine grove of Kurosaki, they found the place name black, the pines green, the waves on the shore white as snow, and the shells the dark red of sappanwood—one color short of the five colors. That day the boat was pulled along by towropes from a place called Hako-no-ura.
Those who compose poems this day are "a certain person" and "the master of the boat." "The master of the boat" refers to its owner, the former Governor of Tosa whose term had ended, Ki no Tsurayuki.
Lamenting that the journey had dragged on into the second month, and unable to bear the hardship, the master of the boat composed this poem to ease his mind, since others were saying the same.
Those listening privately thought it a thoroughly ordinary poem. But since the master of the boat had squeezed it out with great effort and thought it good, they could hardly criticize it openly, so they merely whispered among themselves and left it at that. Then the wind and waves suddenly rose, and the party stopped there.
The first line, "Hiku fune no," means "of the boat being towed." The second line, "tsunade no nagaki," "as long as the towrope," leads into the length of the days in the third line, "haru no hi o."
The fourth line, "yosoka ika made," means "up to forty or fifty days." In the final line, "ware wa henikeri," "he" is the continuative form of the verb "fu" (to pass time), "ni" the perfective auxiliary "nu," and "keri" the exclamatory auxiliary: how many days I have spent.
The poem takes in the actual scene of the boat being towed, moving from the length of the rope to the length of spring days, and on to the length of the journey. Yet the narration depicts the listeners quietly judging the poem to be plain and commonplace.
- Author
- Ki no Tsurayuki
- Source
- Tosa Nikki
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