真菰草つのぐみわたる沢辺には
つながぬ駒も離れざりけり
つながぬ駒も離れざりけり
- Roma-ji
-
Makomogusa tsunogumi wataru sawabe ni wa tsunaganu koma mo hanarezarikeri
- English Translation
-
Where the wild rice grass
sends up its horn-like shoots
all across the marsh,
even the untethered ponies
will not wander far away.
- Meaning
- In the marshes where the wild rice grass has sent up its horn-shaped shoots all around, even ponies left untied do not stray away.
- Commentary
-
Book One Spring Poems 12
The scene is a marsh where young shoots of wild rice grass have sprouted everywhere like little horns, and loose horses stay there though no one has tied them. They linger for the new grass, and the poem catches the vitality of the waterside in spring.
Against the ponies "with no one to tether them" in the preceding poem, this one sings of ponies that stay without being tied, and the spring pony poems continue.
The first line, "wild rice grass," names a grass of the waterside used as material for poems on spring sprouting.
The second line, "sends up its horn-like shoots," means shoots coming up everywhere like horns, "wataru" adding the sense of all across.
The third line, "the marsh," is the wet ground by the water where horses graze on new grass.
The fourth line, "the untethered ponies," seems to answer "no one to tether them" in the preceding poem.
The last line, "will not wander away," is an exclamation of realization with "keri," delighting that the ponies stay though untied.
- Author
- Shun'e
- Source
- Shika Wakashu
- Prev Poem
-
Toritsunagu hito mo naki no no harukoma wa kasumi ni nomi ya tanabikaruramu
- Next Poem
-
Moeizuru kusaba nomi ka wa Ogasawara koma no keshiki mo harumekinikeri