A Hundred Verses from Old Japan · 23 of 101

22. Yasuhide Bunya: Bunya No Yasuhide

22

Yasuhide Bunya

Bunya No Yasuhide

Fuku kara ni Aki no kusa ki no Shiborureba Mube yama kaze wo Arashi to iuramu.

THE mountain wind in autumn time Is well called ‘hurricane’; It hurries canes and twigs along, And whirls them o’er the plain To scatter them again.

This well-known writer lived in the ninth century, and was the father of Asayasu, who composed verse No. 37; he was also Vice-Director of the Imperial Bureau of Fabrics.

The point of this verse lies in the ideographic characters of the original; yama kaze (mountain wind) being written with two characters, which, when combined, form arashi (hurricane), and this, of course, it is quite impossible to reproduce correctly in the translation. The picture shows the wind blowing down from the mountain behind the poet and waving his sleeves about.