Hyakunin Isshu Oracle

No.6 中納言家持(大伴家持)「かささぎの 渡せる橋に 置く霜の 白きを見れば 夜ぞ更けにける」

かささぎの 渡せる橋に 置く霜の 白きを見れば 夜ぞ更けにける

中納言家持(大伴家持)

frost on the star-bridge — that is how late it is

frost on the star-bridge — that is how late it is

キーワードKeywords

FrostMagpie BridgeMilky WayDeep NightCold White
Nature/Seasons Winter

中納言家持(大伴家持)Ōtomo no Yakamochi — No. 6 公卿Court Noble

A noble poet thought to have shaped the compilation of the Man’yōshū, born to the powerful Ōtomo clan and posted to the provinces.

かささぎの わたせるはしに おくしもの しろきをみれば よぞふけにける

Kasasagi no Wataseru hashi ni Oku shimo no Shiroki o mireba Yo zo fuke ni keru

現代語訳Modern Japanese

コンセプトConcept

情景The Scene

A bridge — or the band of the Milky Way read as one — laid across the sky, and along it a line of frost so white it can only mean the night has gone very deep. Nobody says the hour. The color says it.

日本の美意識Japanese Aesthetic

Mitate (Creative Misreading)

The poem reads a celestial thing as a domestic one, frost on a railing. Scale collapses and the sky becomes touchable. When your subject is too large to feel, find the small texture that stands in for it.