Meet the Poets of Hyakunin Isshu
Kakinomoto no Hitomaro

Meaning

As long as the trailing tail feathers of the mountain bird — through these long, long nights, must I sleep alone?

Commentary

This poem captures the loneliness of a night spent apart from one's beloved, using the drooping tail of the copper pheasant as a symbol of the long hours ahead.

It was believed at the time that a pair of copper pheasants would spend their days together but sleep on separate mountains, divided by a valley, each night — an image the poet uses to reflect his own solitary situation.

Kakinomoto no Hitomaro is widely known as a representative poet of the Manyoshu, but in this poem we can glimpse not the court poet, but the feelings of an ordinary man troubled by love.

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