山彦の答ふる山のほととぎす
一声鳴けば二声ぞ聞く
一声鳴けば二声ぞ聞く
- Roma-ji
-
Yamabiko no kotauru yama no hototogisu hitokoe nakeba futakoe zo kiku
- English Translation
-
On the mountainside
where the echo makes reply,
the cuckoo calls—
and for every single cry
it is two cries that we hear.
- Meaning
- On a mountain where the echo answers back, when the cuckoo sings once, we hear its song twice.
- Commentary
-
Book Two Summer Poems 59
Plain and witty, the poem notes that on a mountain where echoes return, a single call of the cuckoo is heard as two. It conveys the joy of having the rarely heard cuckoo's voice doubled by the echo.
After the anxious waiting of poem 58, the cuckoo's voice is at last actually heard here. The poem stands at the turning point from waiting to hearing.
First line, "the echo," refers to the voice that rings back from the mountain.
Second line defines the mountain as one where the echo replies.
Third line brings in the cuckoo, here for the first time as a bird that actually sings.
Fourth line, "one cry," forms a numerical pair with "two cries" in the final line.
Fifth line uses the emphatic particle zo, ending with the attributive kiku.
- Author
- Nōin
- Source
- Shika Wakashu
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