高円の尾上の雉朝な朝な
妻に恋ひつつ鳴く音悲しも
妻に恋ひつつ鳴く音悲しも
- Roma-ji
-
Takamado no onoe no kigisu asana asana tsuma ni koitsutsu naku ne kanashi mo
- English Translation
-
On Takamado,
from its peak a pheasant calls
morning after morning,
yearning for its mate—
how sad the sound of its cry.
- Meaning
- Morning after morning the pheasant on the peak of Mount Takamado cries out, yearning for its mate—how sad its voice is.
- Commentary
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Spring Poems 106
Headnote: "Pheasants"
The poet hears, as a sorrowful sound, the cry of the male pheasant on the peak of Mount Takamado calling every morning for its mate. Overlaying the bird's call for its mate with the pain of human love, he sings simply, using a place name and words associated with the Man'yōshū.
One character in the last line of the base text is hard to read, so the common reading naku ne kanashi mo has been adopted. Mount Takamado, east of Nara, is often sung in the Man'yōshū.
Line 1 names Mount Takamado in Yamato, a place linked with the Man'yōshū.
Line 2: onoe is a mountain peak, and kigisu is an old word for pheasant.
Line 3 is hypermetric at six syllables, meaning "morning after morning"; the same words close the next poem, 107.
Line 4: tsutsu shows continued action, yearning again and again for the mate.
Line 5: mo is an exclamatory final particle, a typical Man'yō ending.
- Author
- Minamoto no Sanetomo
- Source
- Kinkaishu
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Aoniyoshi nara no yama naru yobukodori itaku na naki so kimi mo konaku ni
- Next Poem
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Ono ga tsuma koiwabinikeri haru no no ni asaru kigisu no asana asana naku