夕されば

門田の稲葉

おとづれて

あしのまろやに

秋風ぞふく

だいなごんつねのぶ

ゆうされば

かどたのいなば

おとずれて

あしのまろやに

あきかぜぞふく

Minamoto no Tsunenobu

On an evening

When rice leaves

Gently tap my gate,

Into my humble reed hut

The autumn breeze blows in.

Minamoto no Tsunenobu (1016 - 1097), was Dainagon or Great Counsellor. He is known as a calligrapher and biwa player. His poetry style was descriptive. He was the father of Toshiyori (poem 74) and grandfather of Shune (poem 85). He belongs to the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets. Eighty-six poems of his are known.

作者略伝と語釈

The headnote to this poem says that it was written on the subject of ‘Autumn wind at a house in the paddies’ during a meeting at the villa of Minamoto no Morokata in a mountain village.

Line three is either oto su (make a sound) or otozureru (come to visit), but other interpretations see the zu as a negative, making it ‘unable to hear’. In line four ashi can mean ‘poor, humble, rough; foot; or reed grass’. So there is a kind of personification of nature.

Hokusai shows us an autumn scene. One man is holding on to his hat in the wind. Two women are preparing rice to make mochi, rice cakes. It looks like the men are coming back home from work, ‘blowing in’ like the autumn breeze. One of them is washing his feet.

Hokusai