誰にとか池の心も思ふらむ
底に宿れる松の千歳は
底に宿れる松の千歳は
- Roma-ji
-
Tare ni to ka ike no kokoro mo omou ramu soko ni yadoreru matsu no chitose wa
- English Translation
-
For whom, I wonder,
does the pond's own heart believe
they are kept,
lodged deep within its waters,
the pine's thousand years
- Meaning
- For whom, I wonder, does even the heart of the pond believe they are kept, these thousand years of the pine lodged as a reflection in its depths?
- Commentary
-
Book Five Celebration Poems 169
Seeing the reflection of a pine on the pond's surface as a thousand years of age held in the pond's depths, the poem asks for whom they are kept, and so celebrates the long life of the master who lives beside the pond.
Personifying the pond as having a heart, and pointing to the honoree only through an unanswered question, lends the blessing an elegant indirection. It suits the garden scene of pond and pine at a noble residence.
First line, "For whom, I wonder," poses a question with the particle ka, asking for whom the pond thinks it is.
Second line, "does the pond's own heart believe," personifies the pond by giving it a heart, with mo implying that the pond, like a person, thinks so too.
Third line, "they are kept," corresponds to omou ramu, the attributive of the conjectural ramu resolving ka. The poem breaks after the third line, in inverted order with the lower verses.
Fourth line, "lodged deep within its waters," says the pine's reflection rests in the depths. It answers the opening poem, 161, and its "riverbed so clear," both singing of the water's depths.
Fifth line, "the pine's thousand years," places the subject last through inversion. Chitose is the same word as in 161's "through a thousand years," and the pine here begins the series of pines that leads to "the pine of Sumiyoshi."
- Author
- Egyō
- Source
- Shika Wakashu
- Prev Poem
-
Hitotose o kurenu to nani ka oshimu beki tsukisenu chiyo no haru o matsu ni wa
- Next Poem
-
Kimi ga yo no hisashikaru beki tameshi ni ya kami mo uekemu Sumiyoshi no matsu