もろともにいつとはなしにありあけの
月のみ送る山路をぞ行く
月のみ送る山路をぞ行く
- Roma-ji
-
Morotomo ni itsu to wa nashi ni ariake no tsuki nomi okuru yamaji o zo yuku
- English Translation
-
Ever at my side
before I knew it, there
the moon of dawn stays,
the moon alone sees me off
as I travel the mountain path
- Meaning
- Before I knew it, the dawn moon was there beside me, and now it alone sees me off as I go along the mountain road.
- Commentary
-
Book Three Autumn Poems 213
Walking a mountain road before dawn, the poet finds that the dawn moon, which has somehow come to keep him company, is the only one to see him off. On a lonely mountain path with no one to bid him farewell, he makes the moon his sole companion.
From this poem through poem 216 in this book come poems on the dawn moon, placing the moon of daybreak at the close of the moon sequence.
From poem 174 through poem 217 in this book a long sequence of moon poems follows, from the evening moon through the bright moon of the fifteenth night of the Eighth Month to the moon at dawn, singing of the moon in all its aspects and of the heart that gazes on it.
The author, Eien, was a son of Fujiwara no Nagasuke and a monk of Kōfukuji. He rose to Provisional Archbishop and, for his poems on the cuckoo, was called the Archbishop of the First Song.
First line, 'morotomo ni', means together, going along with the moon.
Second line, 'itsu to wa nashi ni', means before I knew it, leading to ari in the third line.
Third line, 'ariake no', is a pivot word in which ari means both 'being there' with the poet and the ari of ariake, the dawn moon. Poem 223 in this book uses the same pivot.
Fourth line, 'tsuki nomi okuru', means only the moon sees me off, showing the loneliness of having no one else.
Final line, 'yamaji o zo yuku', is a binding in which zo closes on the attributive yuku.
- Author
- Yoen
- Source
- Kinyo Wakashu
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