夏衣裾野の草を吹く風に
思ひもかけず鹿や鳴くらむ
思ひもかけず鹿や鳴くらむ
- Roma-ji
-
Natsugoromo susono no kusa o fuku kaze ni omoi mo kakezu shika ya nakuramu
- English Translation
-
O summer robe,
in the wind that sweeps across
the grassy mountain skirts,
quite unlooked for, could it be
that a deer is crying out
- Meaning
- In the wind that blows over the grassy foothills of summer, is a deer, quite unexpectedly, crying out?
- Commentary
-
Book Two Summer Poems 144
The wind sweeping the grasses of the summer foothills is as cool as autumn, so perhaps the deer, thinking autumn has come, is crying out unexpectedly. Bringing the deer's cry, an autumn motif, into a summer poem, it lets the cool wind hint at the turning of the season.
The opening 'natsugoromo' also appears in the third line of the book's first poem, 94.
The author, Akisue, is Fujiwara no Akisue. A son of Fujiwara no Takatsune, he was trusted as a close retainer of Emperor Shirakawa because his mother had been the emperor's wet nurse, and he rose to Master of the Office of Palace Repairs. He founded the Rokujō Fujiwara house of poetry.
First line, 'natsugoromo', the summer robe, leads through the hem of the garment to susono, the foothills, in the second line. It is the same word as in poem 94 at the head of the book.
Second line, 'susono no kusa o', takes susono, the gentle slopes at a mountain's foot; suso, hem, is an associated word with the robe.
Third line, 'fuku kaze ni', means in the blowing wind, suggesting its coolness.
Fourth line, 'omoi mo kakezu', means unexpectedly; kaku also evokes hanging a robe, an associated word with the summer robe.
Final line, 'shika ya nakuramu', binds the particle ya with the conjectural ramu: is a deer crying? Deer appear also in poems 146 and 147 in this book.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Akisue
- Source
- Kinyo Wakashu
- Prev Poem
-
Yomosugara hakanaku tataku kuina kana saseru to mo naki shiba no kariya o
- Next Poem
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Kaze fukeba hasu no ukiha ni tama koete suzushiku narinu higurashi no koe