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Japanese
English
Audio: NHK Creative Library
Read by LibriVox volunteer Larry Wilson.
Audio courtesy of LibriVox (Public Domain).
柿本人麻呂
あしびきの
山鳥の尾の
しだり尾の
ながながし夜を
ひとりかも寝む
なかなかし
よをひとり
かもねむ
あし
- Poem 3
- あしびきの
山鳥の尾の
しだり尾の
ながながし夜を ひとりかも寝む
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (dates unknown)
Source: Shūi Wakashū, Love
- English Verse Translation
- Long is the mountain pheasant's tail That curves down in its flight; But longer still,
it seems to me, Left in my lonely plight, Is this unending night.
— William N. Porter, 1909
- Modern Translation
- As long as the trailing tail feathers of the mountain bird — through these long, long nights, must I sleep alone?
- Commentary
- This poem compares the length of a lonely, sleepless night to the long, drooping tail of the copper pheasant. Pheasant pairs were believed to spend their days together but their nights apart, each on a separate mountain across a valley. The poet seems to have layered that habit over his own solitary nights, pouring his aching loneliness into the verse.
- About the Poet
- Kakinomoto no Hitomaro served at the imperial court and was known for composing hymns of praise and elegies for the emperor. Gifted at lyric poetry, he was celebrated alongside Yamabe no Akahito as one of the two "Sages of Poetry" and is revered as a god of waka. He is said to have died on Kamoshima, an island in Iwami Province (present-day Shimane Prefecture), though the cause — whether he collapsed from exhaustion or was executed — remains uncertain.
- Kakinomoto no Hitomaro'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)
You are not beside me.
I pass the night alone, deep in the dark mountains.Sinking in longing for you —
can I make it through this endless night?
- 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).