武士の八十宇治川を行く水の
流れて早き年の暮れかな
流れて早き年の暮れかな
- Roma-ji
-
Mononofu no yaso ujigawa o yuku mizu no nagarete hayaki toshi no kure kana
- English Translation
-
Like the waters flowing
down the Uji River
of the warrior clans,
so swiftly it flows by,
the closing of the year!
- Meaning
- Like the waters rushing down the Uji River, the year flows swiftly by to its close.
- Commentary
-
Winter Poems 399
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "The year's end"
Like the water flowing down the Uji River, the poet sings, the year's end comes flowing swiftly by. In the rapid current of the Uji he lays the swiftness of a year gone in an instant.
This poem was included in the Shinchokusen Wakashū. It uses the first two lines of the Man'yōshū poem by Kakinomoto no Hitomaro on the waves lingering at the fish weirs of the Uji River, whose destination no one knows. Kamo no Mabuchi marked it with a circle.
Line 1, mononofu no, is a pillow word leading through yaso uji, "the many clans," to Uji. Poem 348 opens with the same word.
Line 2 names the Uji River in Yamashiro, using the second line of Hitomaro's poem.
Line 3 means "like the flowing water," and the lines up to here form a preface leading to "flowing swiftly" in line 4.
Line 4 lays the speed of the current over the speed of passing time.
Line 5: kana is exclamatory. The next two poems end with the same line, so three year's-end poems follow one another.
- Author
- Minamoto no Sanetomo
- Source
- Kinkaishu
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Tori mo aezu hakanaku kurete yuku toshi no shibashi todomuru sekimori mogana
- Next Poem
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Shirayuki no furu no yama naru sugimura no suguru hodo naki toshi no kure kana