10. Semi Maru

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A Hundred Verses from Old Japan (The Hyakunin-isshu), tr. by William N. Porter, [1909], at sacred-texts.com

p. 10

10 SEMI MARU

Kore ya kono
Yuku mo kaeru mo
Wakarete wa
Shiru mo shiranu mo
Ausaka no seki.

THE stranger who has travelled far,
  The friend with welcome smile,
All sorts of men who come and go
  Meet at this mountain stile,—
  They meet and rest awhile.

Semi Marti is said to have been the son of the Emperor Uda, who reigned A.D. 888-897. He became blind, and so, being unable to ascend the throne, he retired to a hut on the hills, near to a barrier gate, and amused himself with his guitar. The translation does not fully reproduce the antithesis of the original—'this or that man, people coming and going, long lost friends and strangers'. The last line is literally 'the barrier on the mountain road of meeting'; and Ōsaka no Seki, as the name is now spelled, a small hill on the edge of Lake Biwa, not far from Kyōto, is the site commemorated in this verse.

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