聞かでただあらましものを夕月夜
人だのめなる荻の上風
人だのめなる荻の上風
- Roma-ji
-
Kikade tada aramashi mono o yūzukuyo hitodanome naru ogi no uwakaze
- English Translation
-
Better had I never
heard it, there at moonrise,
in the evening:
the wind across the reeds
that feigns a lover's coming.
- Meaning
- Better had I never heard it: the wind across the reed leaves on this moonlit evening, deceiving me into thinking you had come.
- Commentary
-
Love Poems 425
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Among poems on love"
On a moonlit evening the poet's heart leaps at the sound of the wind over the reed leaves, mistaking it for his lover's coming, then realizes it is only the wind and laments that he had better never have heard it. Hope and disappointment are entrusted to the sound of the wind on the reeds.
According to the notes in the base text, the original manuscript reads "bush clover" in line 5. Kamo no Mabuchi judged kikade tada in line 1 to be in the later style.
Line 1 means "simply not hearing," de being a negative conjunctive particle.
Line 2 means "would that I had been," mashi expressing a counterfactual and mono o adversative exclamation; the poem pauses here, and the order is inverted.
Line 3 means "a night with an evening moon," the hour of waiting for a lover.
Line 4 means "raising false hopes," leading one to expect a visit in vain.
Line 5 names the wind over the reed leaves, ending on a noun. Reeds rustling in the wind suggest someone approaching.
- Author
- Minamoto no Sanetomo
- Source
- Kinkaishu
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