春日野の飛ぶ火の野守今日とてや
昔かたみに若菜摘むらむ
昔かたみに若菜摘むらむ
- Roma-ji
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Kasugano no tobuhi no nomori kyō tote ya mukashi katami ni wakana tsumuramu
- English Translation
-
On Kasuga plain,
the guardian of the beacon field—
because it is today,
in memory of long ago
does he gather young greens there?
- Meaning
- Is the keeper of the beacon field on Kasuga plain gathering young greens today, in memory of the days of old?
- Commentary
-
Spring Poems 18
Headnote: "On a folding-screen painting of people gathering young greens"
Prompted by a folding-screen painting of people gathering young greens, the poet imagines the keeper of Kasuga plain gathering greens "today" as a remembrance of the past. He overlays the world of an old poem on the figure in the painting, evoking a scene of gathering greens that transcends time. Kamo no Mabuchi criticized the phrase "in memory of long ago."
The poem takes as its source an anonymous Kokinshū poem calling on the keeper of the beacon field at Kasuga to go out and see how many days remain until the greens can be gathered. In the Ruijū text the headnote reads simply "A place where young greens are gathered."
Line 1: Kasuga plain, at the foot of Mount Kasuga in Yamato, is famed for gathering young greens.
Line 2: tobuhi means a beacon fire, and the line refers to the keeper of the beacon post on Tobuhino at Kasuga, using the words of the source poem as they are.
Line 3, "because it is today": ya is an interrogative particle.
Line 4, "in memory of long ago," suggests the gathering of greens in the age of the source poem.
Line 5 concludes the ya construction with the attributive ramu. Following the preceding poem, 17, on young greens, the scene moves from a real landscape to a screen painting.
- Author
- Minamoto no Sanetomo
- Source
- Kinkaishu
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Wakana tsumu koromode nurete kataoka no ashita no hara ni awayuki zo furu
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Matsu no ha no shiroki o mireba kasugayama ko no me mo haru no yuki zo furikeru