Long Goodbyes: Poem Number 30

Hi all,

New year is here, and I guess it’s time to say “goodbye” to the old one. This poem is also happens to be about good-byes of another sort.

Japanese	Romanization	Translation
有明の	Ariaké no	There is nothing so depressing
つれなくみえし	Tsurenaku mieshi	as the break of day and
別れより	Wakare yori	leaving you after
暁ばかり	Akatsuki bakari	having seen the heartless
うきものはなし	Uki mono wa nashi	morning moon.

The author, Mibu no Tadamine (壬生忠岑, dates unknown), is one of the Thirty-Six Immortals of Poetry and was the father of Tadami (poem 41). He was also one of the official compilers of the official anthology, the Kokinshū, along with Ōshikōchi no Mitsune (poem 29).

By all accounts, this appears to be another famous “morning after poem”, similar to the one seen in poem 50. The term, ariake (有明) is a poetic term for the last-rising moon, in the last-half of the lunar cycle, which you can still see in the morning.¹ On the other hand, as Professor Mostow points out, the fact that the moon was heartless could also imply lover who spent all night waiting to see his lover but was never received and finally went home at dawn.

Either way, the morning moon seems to carry a lot of significance for romantic types back then.

¹ Similarly, akatsuki (暁) is a poetic term for daybreak.