恋ひわびて寝ぬ夜積もれば敷妙の
枕さへこそうとくなりけれ
枕さへこそうとくなりけれ
- Roma-ji
-
Koiwabite nenu yo tsumoreba shikitae no makura sae koso utoku narikere
- English Translation
-
Pining with love,
as the sleepless nights pile up,
my fine-woven
pillow, even it, has grown
distant and cold toward me
- Meaning
- Pining in love, as night after sleepless night piles up, even my pillow has become a stranger to me.
- Commentary
-
Book Eight Love Poems II 425
As sleepless nights of love's torment pile up, the poet says, not only the beloved but even his pillow has grown distant from him. Personifying the pillow, the poem conveys the misery of nights in which he cannot even sleep alone, let alone share his bed.
The opening line koiwabite, pining with love, is also used in poems 435 and 465 in this book, and poems that begin from a heart troubled by love are scattered through the book.
The author, Akisuke, is Fujiwara no Akisuke. A son of Fujiwara no Akisue, founder of the Rokujō Fujiwara house, he rose to Master of the Western Capital Office and compiled the Shikawakashū at the command of Retired Emperor Sutoku.
First line, 'koiwabite', means pining with love. Poems 435 and 465 in this book begin with the same line.
Second line, 'nenu yo tsumoreba', means as the nights without sleep pile up, using nu, the attributive of the negative zu, and ba expressing a cause.
Third line, 'shikitae no', is a pillow word for makura, pillow.
Fourth line, 'makura sae koso', means even my pillow, the particle sae adding the sense of not only my beloved but even my pillow. The particle koso is answered by kere in the final line.
Final line, 'utoku narikere', means has grown distant, closing with kere, the perfective form of the exclamatory keri, in answer to koso in the fourth line.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Akisuke
- Source
- Kinyo Wakashu
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