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Audio: NHK Creative Library
Read by LibriVox volunteer Larry Wilson.
Audio courtesy of LibriVox (Public Domain).
山部赤人
田子の浦に
うちいでてみれば
白妙の
富士の高嶺に
雪は降りつつ
ふしのたか
ねにゆきは
ふりつつ
たご
- Poem 4
- 田子の浦に
うちいでてみれば
白妙の
富士の高嶺に 雪は降りつつ
Author: Yamabe no Akahito (dates unknown)
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashū, Winter
- English Verse Translation
- I started off along the shore, The sea shore at Tago, And saw the white and glist'ning peak
Of Fuji all aglow Through falling flakes of snow.
— William N. Porter, 1909
- Modern Translation
- Going out to Tago Bay and looking around, I see snow falling ceaselessly on the high peak of Fuji, white as freshly woven cloth.
- Commentary
- Tago Bay refers to the western shore of Suruga Bay, around the coastline near present-day Yui and Kanbara. Mountains press close to the shoreline throughout this area, and it is only at Tago Bay that Mount Fuji's full form first comes into view. In Japan, snow has long been regarded as sacred, ranked alongside the moon and blossoms in the phrase "snow, moon, and flowers." This poem captures the poet's awe at seeing snow piling upon the majestic, towering peak of Mount Fuji.
- About the Poet
- Yamabe no Akahito was a Man'yōshū-era poet of the Nara period who served Emperor Shōmu. Though only a minor court official, he had a gift for capturing nature in verse, and left behind many poems composed while accompanying the emperor's imperial progresses to various regions. Alongside Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, he came to be celebrated by later generations as one of the two "Sages of Poetry."
- Yamabe no Akahito'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)
Passing through the shadowed hills,
the view suddenly opens wide.And there it stood —
Mount Fuji, vast, white, and awe-inspiring.
- 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).