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Audio: NHK Creative Library
Read by LibriVox volunteer Larry Wilson.
Audio courtesy of LibriVox (Public Domain).
持統天皇
春過ぎて
夏来にけらし
白妙の
衣ほすてふ
天の香具山
ころもほす
てふあまの
かくやま
はるす
- Poem 2
- 春過ぎて
夏来にけらし
白妙の
衣ほすてふ 天の香具山
Author: Empress Jitō (645–702)
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashū, Summer
- English Verse Translation
- The spring has gone, the summer's come, And I can just descry The peak of Ama-no-kagu,
Where angels of the sky Spread their white robes to dry.
— William N. Porter, 1909
- Modern Translation
- Spring has passed and summer seems to have come — white robes are said to be hung out to dry on the heavenly Mount Kagu.
- Commentary
- Mount Kagu is a low hill in present-day Kashihara, Nara Prefecture, visible to the east from Fujiwara-kyō, the capital where Empress Jitō governed. In early summer, it was customary to hang pure white robes out to dry on this mountain — a seasonal sight that, in its day, heralded the arrival of summer.
- About the Poet
- Her personal name was Uno no Sarara. She was the daughter of Emperor Tenji, though her maternal grandfather was driven to suicide after being accused of plotting treason against him. In the Jinshin War — the largest civil war in ancient Japanese history — she fought alongside her husband, Emperor Tenmu, for the succession following Emperor Tenji's death, and they won. After Emperor Tenmu's death, her son Prince Kusakabe died young, so in her mid-forties she ascended the throne herself. Carrying on Emperor Tenmu's wishes, she oversaw the construction of the capital at Fujiwara-kyō and the establishment of the ritsuryō legal system.
- Empress Jitō'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 look up, and the green of Mount Kagu dazzles my eyes.
White robes drifting in the wind —
summer has come again, just as it should.
- 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).