Hyakunin Isshu #76

    When I row out on
the plain of the sea and look,
    white-capped billows of
the watery main appear
to be the heavenly clouds.

—18-23 July 2010

Original by Fujiwara no Tadamichi, father of Jien (#95), grandfather of Yoshitsune (#91) and Shokushi (#89), and recipient of #75. As prime minister, he was a leader of the winning side of a civil war over the imperial succession known as the Hôgen Disturbance. The literal meaning of hisakata no is just as unknown as in #32, with the added bonus of here being conspicuously old-fashioned. Kumoi is an archaic word for both "clouds" and "sky" which can also mean high places and the imperial court, and given the possible political context, the waves are sometimes seen as a symbol for Tadamichi's turbulent times -- so what is being mistaken (mayou) for what is much debated. This is another poem where English syntax cannot readily replicate the original's terminal sentence fragment -- assume I supplied a missing cupola, then applied poetic compression.


wata no hara
kogiidete mireba
hisakata no
kumoi ni mayou
okitsu shiranami

---L.