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Japanese
English
Audio: NHK Creative Library
Read by LibriVox volunteer Larry Wilson.
Audio courtesy of LibriVox (Public Domain).
陽成院
筑波嶺の
峰より落つる
みなの川
こひぞつもりて
淵となりぬる
こひそつも
りてふちと
なりぬる
つく
- Poem 13
- 筑波嶺の
峰より落つる
みなの川
こひぞつもりて 淵となりぬる
Author: Retired Emperor Yōzei (868–949)
Source: Gosen Wakashū, Love
- English Verse Translation
- The Mina stream comes tumbling down From Mount Tsukuba's height; Strong as my love,
it leaps into A pool as black as night With overwhelming might.
— William N. Porter, 1909
- Modern Translation
- Just as the streams from the peak of Tsukuba flow down to fill the deep pools of the Mina River, so my love for you has gathered deep within me.
- Commentary
- The Gosen Wakashū's headnote reads, "Sent to the Princess of Tsuridono." Retired Emperor Yōzei composed this poem as a proposal of marriage to Princess Suishi, a daughter of Emperor Kōkō known as the Princess of Tsuridono; the two later married. Mount Tsukuba's eastern peak is called Nyotai-san ("Woman Body Mountain") and its western peak Nantai-san ("Man Body Mountain"), and the mountain is frequently invoked in poems of love.
- About the Poet
- Retired Emperor Yōzei ascended the throne at age nine but abdicated at seventeen due to mental illness. Accounts of violent behavior survive, though the reasons for his abdication are debated — one theory holds that it was engineered by Fujiwara no Mototsune. He went on to hold the position of retired emperor for more than sixty years afterward, the longest such tenure in Japanese history.
- Retired Emperor Yōzei'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)
Like a small drop trickling down the mountain,
slowly becoming a deep pool —before I knew it, my feelings for you
had grown too deep to turn back from.
- 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).