Japanese Waka-Summer:Spending summer days while being in a breeze of wind – Nagabisura nagametenatuwo sugusukana fukikurukazeni miwomakasetsutsu.
Nagabisura nagametenatuwo sugusukana fukikurukazeni miwomakasetsutsu.
(Yoshitada Collection (also know as: Sotan (曾丹) Collection), an early June, Sone no Yoshitada / male, 163,10c)
Translation into modern Japanese
I spend (not just usual days but) even long summer days by gazing at (only the sky) letting myself blowing in the wind.
Detailed explanation of the contents
It seems the summer solstice has gone while I was busy with various daily works. It was on 22nd June (int this year). I didn't notice the days have got long as we are in Japanese rainy season (tsuyu), but I've noticed it is still bright on the way home. I wonder how every one else in Japan think. It seems to about a half access to this blog are from overseas, I also think everybody has already felt about the start of the summer in each home town. \if you live on the south side of the earth, it is the opposite season, isn't it? I'd like to thank everybody who come to this site.
The phenomenon, that the length of a day becomes longer from the spring to the summer, was known in Heian era (9-10c), and the word: ¨Nagabi” means a long day. If anything, we feel the length of a day in the spring, and we feel the speed of gathering dusk in the autumn, but here it is about the poem in the summer. I have given the modern Japanese translation ¨the sky” for the thing he would be looking out, but it could be ¨far a way”, or ¨the view”.
The old Japanese word: ¨nagamu (the dictionary from of nagame-te)” has a meaning of ¨being lost in thought”, but it is not always the case. The word was used as the same way in the modern Japanese such as looking at far a way or enjoying the view. And the ¨thought” can be deep and also be shallow. In the case of the poem, which one? He might be vaguely looking out the view out side the house while he was lost in thought, or he was just thinking hot (as it was in the summer), or... Well, he wouldn't be totally blank, he never got tired of spending long summer days by just looking out the sky (or the view) but nothing else to do. I wonder what he was looking – the sun beams? The vast blue sky? The overgrown green plants? Whatever he did, it was just hot, so he left himself in the wind and vaguely gazing out. I wonder what he had in his mind when he had nothing to do but just leaving himself in the wind brown.
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