久方の空飛ぶ雁の涙かも
大荒木野の笹の上の露
大荒木野の笹の上の露
- Roma-ji
-
Hisakata no sora tobu kari no namida kamo ōaraki no no sasa no ue no tsuyu
- English Translation
-
In the far-off sky
are these the tears of wild geese
winging overhead?
On the moor of Ōaraki,
dew upon the bamboo grass.
- Meaning
- Are these the tears of the geese flying across the sky—this dew on the bamboo grass of Ōaraki moor?
- Commentary
-
Autumn Poems 222
Headnote: "Dew in the fields"
The poet imagines the dew on the bamboo grass of Ōaraki moor as tears shed by geese crossing the sky. Linking the dew of earth with the geese of the sky, he lays the loneliness of the autumn fields over the sorrow of the geese.
The Ruijū text gives the headnote as "Dew of the fields." The Ruijū and Teika texts read "heavens" for "sky" in line 2, and the Teika text also differs in the last line. Likening dew to the tears of geese has a precedent in the anonymous Kokin Wakashū poem wondering whether the dew on the bush clover at a house of brooding is the tears of geese crying as they pass.
Line 1, hisakata no, is a pillow word for "sky."
Line 2 means "of the geese flying across the sky"; poems on geese follow in this section from 223.
Line 3: kamo is a question carrying exclamation, "are these tears?", and the poem pauses here.
Line 4 names the moor of Ōaraki, a poetic site in Yamashiro known for its wood.
Line 5 is hypermetric and ends on a noun, giving last, through inversion, the dew likened to the geese's tears. Where 191 likened dew on the sleeves to the poet's own tears, this poem likens dew on bamboo grass to the tears of geese.
- Author
- Minamoto no Sanetomo
- Source
- Kinkaishu
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