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Japanese
English
Audio: NHK Creative Library
Read by LibriVox volunteer Larry Wilson.
Audio courtesy of LibriVox (Public Domain).
河原左大臣
陸奥の
しのぶもぢずり
誰ゆゑに
乱れそめにし
我ならなくに
みたれそめ
にしわれな
らなくに
みち
- Poem 14
- 陸奥の
しのぶもぢずり
誰ゆゑに
乱れそめにし 我ならなくに
Author: Minister of the Left of Kawara (822–895)
Source: Kokin Wakashū, Love
- English Verse Translation
- Ah! why does love distract my thoughts, Disordering my will! I'm like the pattern on the cloth
Of Michinoku hill, All in confusion still.
— William N. Porter, 1909
- Modern Translation
- For whose sake has my heart become as disordered as the tangled patterns of Shinobu-mojizuri cloth of Mutsu? It is certainly not my own doing.
- Commentary
- This poem compares the poet's turbulent feelings — unable to hold back his longing for the one he loves — to the tangled, mottled pattern of dyed cloth.
- About the Poet
- The Minister of the Left of Kawara, Minamoto no Tōru, was a son of Emperor Saga, but because his mother's rank was low, he was removed from the imperial family and made a subject, taking the Minamoto surname. When Retired Emperor Yōzei abdicated, Tōru put himself forward as a candidate for the throne, but was blocked by Fujiwara no Mototsune. Disheartened, he gradually withdrew from politics, built a lavish mansion called Kawara-in in Kyoto's Rokujō district, and, as a hobby, recreated the scenery of Shiogama in Michinoku there, having thirty koku of seawater hauled in every month just to make salt. His extravagant lifestyle is said to have inspired the character of Hikaru Genji, the protagonist of Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji.
- Minister of the Left of Kawara'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)
The feelings I'd held back come undone inside me.
This tangled heart can no longer be hidden.It isn't my fault —
it's the fault of this love I feel for you.
- 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).