冬深き氷やいたく閉ぢつらむ
影こそ見えね山の井の水
影こそ見えね山の井の水
- Roma-ji
-
Fuyu fukaki kōri ya itaku tojitsuramu kage koso miene yama no i no mizu
- English Translation
-
Has the deep winter's
ice so thoroughly sealed it
over, I wonder?
No reflection can be seen
in the water of the mountain well.
- Meaning
- Has the ice of deep winter sealed it so completely? No reflection shows any longer in the water of the mountain spring.
- Commentary
-
Winter Poems 336
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "A winter night"
The poet wonders whether, with winter deepening, ice has sealed the mountain spring completely, for he can see no reflection in it. In a spring that once mirrored all in its clear water and now, covered in ice, mirrors nothing, he sees how deep the winter has grown.
In the Man'yōshū there is a poem on a shallow mountain spring in which even reflections can be seen, and the mountain spring has long been sung as something that mirrors. This poem says the reflection cannot be seen, turning the image into a winter scene. The Ruijū text gives line 1 as fuyu fukami, and the Teika text gives line 3 as tojitsurashi.
Line 1 means "as winter deepens." The next poems, 337 and 338, have fuyu fukami and fuyu fukaki, so three poems carry on the deepening of winter.
Line 2: ya is an interrogative binding particle concluded in line 3; itaku means "severely, completely."
Line 3 concludes ya with the attributive of the present conjectural ramu, and the poem pauses here.
Line 4 concludes koso with ne, the evaluative form of the negative zu, flowing on to line 5 as "though no reflection shows." Line 4 of 338 is the same.
Line 5 ends on a noun, revealing last by inversion the water that no longer reflects.
- Author
- Minamoto no Sanetomo
- Source
- Kinkaishu
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Otowayama yamaoroshi fuku ōsaka no seki no ogawa wa kōri shinikeri
- Next Poem
-
Fuyu fukami kōri ni tozuru yamakawa no kumu hito nashi to toshi ya kurenamu