思ひかね今朝は空をや眺むらむ
雲の通ひ路霞隔てて
雲の通ひ路霞隔てて
- Roma-ji
-
Omoikane kesa wa sora o ya nagamuramu kumo no kayoiji kasumi hedatete
- English Translation
-
Unable to bear
your thoughts, do you gaze up at
the sky this morning,
now that haze has come between
the pathways through the clouds
- Meaning
- Unable to bear your thoughts, are you gazing at the sky this morning, now that the haze has cut off the path that runs through the clouds?
- Commentary
-
Book Nine Miscellaneous Poems I 529
Unable to bear the weight of thought, the poet wonders, is that person gazing at the sky this morning, now that haze has cut off the path through the clouds? Kumo no kayoiji, the path through the clouds to the heavens, is also a figure for attendance at court. The poem seems to imagine the feelings of someone kept by the haze from the path to the palace and no longer able to attend court.
Kumo no kayoiji is a phrase known from the Kokin Wakashū poem asking the winds of heaven to blow shut the cloud path and keep the dancing maidens a while longer. In this book poem 570 speaks of kumo no kakehashi, the ladder of clouds, seeking the way to rise to the court again.
First line, 'omoikane', means unable to bear one's thoughts.
Second line, 'kesa wa sora o ya', means this morning the sky, the particle ya expressing a question answered by ramu in the third line.
Third line, 'nagamuramu', means are you gazing, the attributive of the present conjectural ramu answering ya in the second line. The poem breaks here.
Fourth line, 'kumo no kayoiji', means the path through the clouds to the heavens, a figure for attendance at court. It echoes kumo no kakehashi in poem 570 in this book.
Final line, 'kasumi hedatete', means the haze lying between, saying that spring haze has cut off the way to the palace, and closes by giving the reason in inverted form.
- Source
- Kinyo Wakashu
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