たまさかに我が待ち得たる鶯の
初音をあやな人や聞くらむ
初音をあやな人や聞くらむ
- Roma-ji
-
Tamasaka ni waga machietaru uguisu no hatsune o ayana hito ya kikuramu
- English Translation
-
Rarely, at long last,
I have waited and now heard
the warbler's voice;
its first song, against all reason,
do others hear it too?
- Meaning
- At long last I have heard the warbler's first song after waiting so long; is it fair that others, who never waited, should hear it too?
- Commentary
-
Book One Spring Poems 4
Joy at finally hearing the long-awaited first song of the warbler mixes with a slightly sulky sense that it is unreasonable for people who never waited as he did to hear the same voice. The wish to keep the first song for oneself is expressed with light wit.
Following the poems in which mist announced spring, the sequence moves here to spring caught in the voice of a bird.
The first line, "rarely, at long last," means seldom, or barely, showing that the meeting came only after long waiting.
The second line, "I have waited and now heard," stresses that the poet won it by waiting; "taru" is the attributive of the perfective "tari" and modifies "warbler" in the third line.
The third line, "the warbler's," names the bird sung as the herald of spring.
In the fourth line, "ayana" is the stem of "ayanashi," meaning without reason or unfair; it carries the feeling of comparing oneself with others.
The last line, "do others hear it too," closes a kakari-musubi with the particle "ya" and the attributive of the conjectural "ramu." Imagining that others hear it, the poet voices his complaint gently.
- Author
- Dōmyō
- Source
- Shika Wakashu
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Furusato wa harumekinikeri Miyoshino no Mikakigahara o kasumi kometari
- Next Poem
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Yuki kieba egu no wakana mo tsumubeki ni haru sae harenu miyamabe no sato