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Audio: NHK Creative Library
Read by LibriVox volunteer Larry Wilson.
Audio courtesy of LibriVox (Public Domain).
良暹法師
さびしさに
宿を立ち出でて
ながむれば
いづくも同じ
秋の夕暮
いつくもお
なしあきの
ゆふくれ
さ
- Poem 70
- さびしさに
宿を立ち出でて
ながむれば
いづくも同じ 秋の夕暮
Author: Priest Ryōzen (dates unknown)
Source: Go Shūi Wakashū, Autumn
- English Verse Translation
- The prospect from my cottage shows No other hut in sight; The solitude depresses me, Like
deepening twilight On a chill autumn night.
— William N. Porter, 1909
- Modern Translation
- Feeling lonely, I stepped outside to gaze at the view — and everywhere I looked, it was the same twilight of autumn.
- Commentary
- The headnote in the Go Shūi Wakashū simply says "topic unknown," but the headnote in the Shika Wakashū reads, "composed on beginning to live in Ōhara," suggesting this poem was written when Ryōzen, a monk of Mount Hiei, first retreated into seclusion at Ōhara, on the outskirts of Kyoto — a place rich in nature but sparsely populated. The poem traces a shift in feeling: driven outside his hermitage by loneliness, he ends up finding a strange beauty in the very desolation of the autumn dusk. This poem is said to have started a trend of ending waka with the phrase "autumn dusk."
- About the Poet
- Priest Ryōzen became a monk at Enryaku-ji Temple on Mount Hiei and served as Superintendent of the Gion Shrine (present-day Yasaka Shrine), before retreating to live quietly, out of the public eye, in the village of Ōhara.
- Priest Ryōzen'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 step outside, longing for some sign of life,
but all I find is the autumn wind drifting by.Perhaps this loneliness, too,
is simply part of the evening scenery.
- 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).