[6]かさ (Kasa)

 Poem Meaning and Background

かささぎの・わたせるはしに・おくしもの

kasasagi no・wataseru hashi ni・oku shimo no

しろきをみれば・よぞふけにける

shiroki o mireba・yozo fuke ni keru

~大伴家持　（Ōtomo no Yakamochi)

Translation

If I see that bridge
That is spanned by flights of magpies
Across the arc of heaven
Made white with a deep-laid frost,
Then the night is almost past. 

Meaning

    Though the reference is somewhat obscure in this translation, the author is making an allusion to the myth of Orihime and Hikoboshi. According to the legend, Orihime was a deity who lived in the heavens, known as the weaving princess, and she wove her cloth by the edge of the Milky Way. She fell in love with a cow herder, Hikoboshi (lit. "boy star"), who lived and worked on the other side of the Milky Way. 

    After they wed, they spent so much time fawning over one another that they completely neglected their work. Orihime's father Tentei, the King of the Heavens, was so angered by this that he separated them by the Milky Way and forbid them from meeting. However, Orihime was in such despair over the loss of her husband that her father eventually agreed to let them meet once a year, on the 7th day of the 7th month, provided that she work hard and finish her weaving.
    When the two lovers tried to meet for the first time, they found that there was no bridge across the Milky Way, and Orihime cried. Her tears summoned a flock of magpies, which made a bridge with their wings to allow Orihime to cross the river of stars. The poem evokes a late-night winter scene with glittering white frost, sparkling like the stars of the Milky Way, coating the ground.

Author

    Ōtomo no Yakamochi (c.718-785) was a statesman and prominent poet of the Nara Period. In addition to having a significant role in Japanese politics at the time, he helped to compile the Man'yōshū, Japan's oldest existing anthology of poetry. He is known as one of the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets.