Practise the thinking. Keep the judgement.
田子の浦に
Yamabe no Akahito · 山部赤人
田子の浦に
打出でてみれば
白妙の
ふじの高嶺に
雪は降りつつ
Historical kana
たごのうらに
うちいでてみれば
しろたへの
ふじのたかねに
ゆきはふりつつ
Original English translation
Coming out onto Tago’s shore, I look up: on Fuji’s lofty peak, white snow keeps falling.
History and context
Akahito is associated with landscape poetry in the Man’yōshū. This later anthology version differs from the earlier text, so the snowy Fuji familiar from karuta is also a story of textual transmission.
Imagery and wordplay
The viewpoint moves from the shore to the summit. “White” joins the conventional cloth image to the snow.
Shinkokinshū · 新古今集冬675
Japanese text and historical kana follow the linked Wikisource transcription. Classical poems can have variant spellings and wording in different anthologies. The source anthology reference identifies the version represented in this collection, not necessarily its earliest surviving text. English prose translations and reading notes are original interpretations; some wordplay permits more than one reading.