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Audio: NHK Creative Library
Read by LibriVox volunteer Larry Wilson.
Audio courtesy of LibriVox (Public Domain).
参議篁
わたの原
八十島かけて
漕ぎ出でぬと
人にはつげよ
あまのつり舟
ひとにはつ
けよあまの
つりふね
わたのはらや
- Poem 11
- わたの原
八十島かけて
漕ぎ出でぬと
人にはつげよ あまのつり舟
Author: Councillor Takamura (802–852)
Source: Kokin Wakashū, Travel
- English Verse Translation
- Oh! Fishers in your little boats, Quick! tell my men, I pray, They'll find me at Yasoshima,
I'm being rowed away Far off across the bay.
— William N. Porter, 1909
- Modern Translation
- I have set out rowing across the vast sea, heading for the many islands far away. Tell the people back home.
- Commentary
- The Kokin Wakashū's headnote reads, "Sent to someone in the capital as he set out by boat, having been exiled to Oki Province." Takamura composed this poem for the family he left behind in the capital, as he was being banished to the island of Oki.
- About the Poet
- Councillor Takamura's real name was Ono no Takamura, and he was the grandfather of Ono no Komachi. While traveling to Tang China as deputy envoy, he was ordered by a superior to swap ships with a leaking vessel, and he refused. He further angered Retired Emperor Saga by writing a Chinese poem, "Saidōyō," criticizing the incompetence of the embassy, and was banished to the remote island of Oki, where he endured a harsh existence. Two years later he was pardoned, returned to the capital, and was restored to office.
- Councillor Takamura's Chart of the Heart
-
A chart and a modern-language reflection of the poet's inner feelings.
The Poet's Feelings (A Personal Interpretation)
I row out toward the edge of the endless sea.
Tell my family waiting in the capital how I looked.Alone on this vast ocean, with nothing to hold onto,
I picture their faces in the waves.
- Poem Illustration
-
This image is based on an illustration from William N. Porter's A Hundred Verses from Old Japan, his 1909 English translation of the Hyakunin Isshu published in England, colorized and reworked using Adobe Firefly (generative AI).