Искусствоед
Minamoto no Kanemasa
Guardian of the gate
Of Suma***, how many nights
Have you awakened
At the crying of the shore birds*
Of the Isle of Awaji? **
(from "One Hundred Poems from the Japanese)
transl. by Kenneth Rexroth
Awaji shima
Kayou chidori no
Naku koe ni
Iku yo nazmenu
Suma no sekimori
* The word translate "shore birds" is chidori, which means sandpipers, plovers, birds like our killdeer and phalaropes. It also means, and is written with the characters for, "the thousand birds".
There is a parallel implied with the guardians of the gates of life, weary with the cries of souls migrating from life to life, and some, passing to the Bliss of Amida's Paradise, or the Nirvana.
**The meaning "never finding" os implicit in "awaji"; also. awa means "spindrift" or "a bubble".
This poem is often echoed in later literature, notably by the great erotic novelist Saikaku in his Futokoro Suzuri: "Hearing the cries of the shorebirds of the Isle of Awaji, I know the sadness of the worlds".
*** Genji was banished to Suma, and Yukihira, the brother of Narihira; and there the Taira clan, fleeing from the capital with the infant emperor, camped and were surprised and almost exterminated by the Minamoto in a great battle that brought to an end the finest years of Japanese civilization.
Guardian of the gate
Of Suma***, how many nights
Have you awakened
At the crying of the shore birds*
Of the Isle of Awaji? **
(from "One Hundred Poems from the Japanese)
transl. by Kenneth Rexroth
Awaji shima
Kayou chidori no
Naku koe ni
Iku yo nazmenu
Suma no sekimori
* The word translate "shore birds" is chidori, which means sandpipers, plovers, birds like our killdeer and phalaropes. It also means, and is written with the characters for, "the thousand birds".
There is a parallel implied with the guardians of the gates of life, weary with the cries of souls migrating from life to life, and some, passing to the Bliss of Amida's Paradise, or the Nirvana.
**The meaning "never finding" os implicit in "awaji"; also. awa means "spindrift" or "a bubble".
This poem is often echoed in later literature, notably by the great erotic novelist Saikaku in his Futokoro Suzuri: "Hearing the cries of the shorebirds of the Isle of Awaji, I know the sadness of the worlds".
*** Genji was banished to Suma, and Yukihira, the brother of Narihira; and there the Taira clan, fleeing from the capital with the infant emperor, camped and were surprised and almost exterminated by the Minamoto in a great battle that brought to an end the finest years of Japanese civilization.