Forthwith going round by Yamashiro,[1] and arriving at the entrance of the Nara Mountain,[2] she sang, saying:
“Oh! the river of Yamashiro where the seedlings grow in succession! As I ascend, ascend to Miya, I pass Nara, I pass Yamato with its shield of mountains; and the country I fain would see is Takamiya in Kadzuraki, the neighbourhood of my home.”[3]
- ↑ For the straight road from Naniha in Settsu to Nara in Yamato would have taken her through the province of Kafuchi, and not through Yamashiro.
- ↑ I.e., the pass or hill leading from the district of Sagara in Yamashiro to Nara in Yamato. For Nara see Sect. LXXII, Note 23.
- ↑ This Song expresses the Empress’s desire to return to her parental house at Takamiya in the district of Kadzuraki,—a desire which, however, her restless frame of mind did not allow her to fulfil.—The Pillow-Word for Yamashiro, which here recurs, has already been discussed in Note 11. There are two other Pillow-Words in this Song,—awoniyoshi, which is prefixed to Nara, and wo-date (or wo-date-yama according to the old reading, or wo-date tatsu according to another reading), which is prefixed to Yamato. The former of these is so obscure that, rather than attempt to render it into English, the translator prefers to refer the student to the remarks of the various commentators,—Mabuchi s.v. in his “Dictionary of Pillow-Words,” Motowori in his Commentary, Vol. XXXVI, pp. 22–24, and Moribe in loco. Wodate [-yama] seems to refer undoubtedly to the
and full of blossoms. Ah! how the sight of the sturdy brilliant beauty of this camellia-tree brings back my lord and master to my mind!”—It must be remembered that in Japan the camellia-trees grow to a size far superior to that reached by their representatives in Europe. Tsuginefu, rendered according to the view taken by Motowori and Moribe by the phrase “where the seedlings grow in succession,” is the Pillow-Word for Yamashiro, and its import is disputed. The interpretation here adopted considers it to refer to the regular succession of young trees planted on a mountain’s side when a tract of older timber has been cut down. Mabuchi, in his “Dictionary of Pillow-Words,” sees in it, on the contrary, a reference to the rising of peak upon peak in a mountainous district (tsugi-ne fu=次嶺經). Both interpretations rest on the connection between this term and yama, the first half of the name of the province of Yamashiro, which it qualifies. “Five hundred [-fold branching]” and “true” are ornamental epithets applied by the poetess to the camellia-tree. Moribe would take the syllable ma, “true,” in the sense of ha, “leaf;” but this seems less good.
