わくらばに行きても見しが醒井の
古き清水に宿る月影
古き清水に宿る月影
- Roma-ji
-
Wakuraba ni yukite mo mishiga samegai no furuki shimizu ni yadoru tsukikage
- English Translation
-
Just once, by some chance,
I would go and see it there—
at Samegai,
in the old and ancient spring,
the moonlight lodging there.
- Meaning
- Just once, by chance, I would like to go and see it—the moonlight lodged in the old spring of Samegai.
- Commentary
-
Autumn Poems 278
Headnote: "Moon by the water"
The poet wishes that, even just once by chance, he might go and see the moonlight lodged in the ancient spring of Samegai in Ōmi. Picturing the moon in a famous spring, he frankly expresses his longing for a waterside moon he has not yet seen.
The Ruijū text places this poem in the miscellaneous section. In the source text consulted, characters in line 3 are missing, and it has been read as samegai no from the syllable count and the flow of the words.
Line 1, wakuraba ni, means "by chance, rarely."
Line 2: shiga is a final particle of the speaker's own wish, "I would like to go and see," and the poem pauses here.
Line 3 names Samegai in Ōmi, famous for its springs.
Line 4 means "in the spring that has welled up since old times." Following "the spring of Oboro" in the preceding poem, 277, this poem too sings of the moon lodged in a spring.
Line 5 ends on a noun, giving last the moonlight reflected in the spring. The preceding poem sang of the moon dwelling in a spring no one draws from; this one wishes to go and see such a moon in a spring, setting the two side by side.
- Author
- Minamoto no Sanetomo
- Source
- Kinkaishu
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Ōhara ya oboro no shimizu sato tōmi hito koso kumane tsuki wa sumikeri
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Tamasaka ni miru mono ni moga ise no umi no kiyoki nagisa no aki no yo no tsuki