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English
Audio: NHK Creative Library
Read by LibriVox volunteer Larry Wilson.
Audio courtesy of LibriVox (Public Domain).
大納言公任
滝の音は
たえて久しく
なりぬれど
名こそ流れて
なほ聞こえけれ
なこそなか
れてなほき
こえけれ
たき
- Poem 55
- 滝の音は
たえて久しく
なりぬれど
名こそ流れて なほ聞こえけれ
Author: Upper Counselor Kintō (966–1041)
Source: Senzai Wakashū, Miscellaneous
- English Verse Translation
- This waterfall's melodious voice Was famed both far and near; Although it long has ceased
to flow, Yet still with memory's ear Its gentle splash I hear.
— William N. Porter, 1909
- Modern Translation
- The sound of the waterfall has long since faded, but its name flows on and is still heard by the world.
- Commentary
- This poem was composed at the ruins of the waterfall pavilion in the garden of Daikaku-ji Temple. Daikaku-ji had originally been Emperor Saga's villa, and its garden once had a beautiful waterfall. By the time Kintō visited, the waterfall had long since ceased flowing, but he wrote that its fame still lived on, widely spoken of even then.
- About the Poet
- Upper Counselor Kintō, Fujiwara no Kintō, was a man of such broad learning that he was praised as possessing the "talent of the three boats" — mastery of Chinese poetry, waka, and music all at once. Yet he also had a careless side: when his elder sister, Fujiwara no Junshi, became Emperor En'yū's empress, he thoughtlessly needled another of the emperor's consorts, Fujiwara no Senshi, asking her, "And when will this lady become empress?" — earning himself lasting resentment. In his later years, dissatisfied with his own rank, he withdrew from political life and chose a life of seclusion.
- Upper Counselor Kintō'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 sound of the waterfall
can no longer be heard anywhere.And yet, in the stillness,
its echo from long ago still remains.
- 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).