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Home › Library › Philology › Abe no Nakamaro - Looking up far across the sky, The moon that rose over Mount Mikasa at Kasuga

天の原ふりさけ見れば春日なる三笠の山に出でし月かも ama no hara furisake mireba kasuga naru mikasa no yama ni ideshi tsuki kamo Abe no Nakamaro - Looking up far across the sky, The moon that rose over Mount Mikasa at Kasuga

Abe no Nakamaro's poem of the moon seen from China, the story told with it, and the one word its English divides on.

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Japanese Scroll of Abe no Nakamaro - Looking up far across the sky, The moon that rose over Mount Mikasa at Kasuga (ama no hara furisake mireba kasuga naru mikasa no yama ni ideshi tsuki kamo) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Abe no Nakamaro - Looking up far across the sky, The moon that rose over Mount Mikasa at Kasuga天の原ふりさけ見れば春日なる三笠の山に出でし月かもama no hara furisake mireba kasuga naru mikasa no yama ni ideshi tsuki kamo

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

天の原ふりさけ見れば春日なる三笠の山に出でし月かも, in which a man looking far out across the sky sees the moon that rose over Mount Mikasa at Kasuga, is the poem the Kokin wakashū 古今和歌集 (905–914) sets first in its book of travel poems, under the heading composed on seeing the moon in China and the name of Abe no Nakamaro 阿倍仲麻呂, the student who went to Tang China in 717 and died there in 770 [1][2][3][4]. The Kokinshū's own note tells that he made it on the shore at めいしう (明州) on the night of a farewell, as he was setting out for home, and ends by calling that a story handed down; the Tosa nikki 土佐日記 (935) tells it again with a different first line, and the 改訂新版 世界大百科事典 holds that occasion as one view among three [1][5][4]. The poem turns on its last word, かも, which can exclaim or can ask, and its English has gone both ways. I read it, as one modern dictionary classes it, as an exclamation of recognition: the moon he sees now is the moon he saw rise at home.

Overview

The sense. The poem is a statement in two halves. 天の原ふりさけ見れば, when I look up far off across the plain of heaven: 天の原 is 広々とした大空, the wide expanse of the sky, in デジタル大辞泉's first sense, and JMdict gives the sky; the heavens [6][7]; ふりさけ見る is 遠くを仰ぎ見る。はるかかなたを見上げる, to look up into the distance; to gaze up far away, in 精選版 日本国語大辞典, which cites this poem, from the Kokinshū's book of travel, number 406, as its second example [2]. 春日なる三笠の山に出でし月かも, the moon that came out over Mount Mikasa, the one at Kasuga: 三笠山 is 奈良市東部の山。奈良公園の背後にあり、ふもとに春日大社や春日若宮がある, a mountain in the east of Nara city, behind Nara Park, with the Kasuga Shrine and the Kasuga Wakamiya at its foot, and a 歌枕, a place named in poetry [8]. So the line says: looking far out across the sky, there is the moon that rose over Mikasa at Kasuga.

The words. 春日なる is that is at Kasuga: なり after a place name 場所や方角などを表わす名詞に付いて、その場所に存在している意を表わす。…に在る, attached to a noun of place or direction, it says that something is in that place: is at [9]. 出でし, read いでし, is the verb 出づ, to come out, to rise, which デジタル大辞泉 gives in its third sense as 日や月など、いままで視界から隠れていたものが現れる, of the sun, the moon and the like: something hidden from view until now appears [10], with the past auxiliary き, which 日国 defines 話し手の直接に見聞したことを表わす, expressing what the speaker saw or heard directly, and デジタル大辞泉 sets against けり: 『けり』が伝承した過去を回想するのに対し、『き』は確実な過去の事実を回想する, where けり recalls a past handed down, き recalls a past that is certain fact [11]. The moon is one he himself saw rise. The last word, かも, is where the readings part. 日国 gives its sentence-final use two senses: (イ) 詠嘆を含んだ疑問を表わす, a question that carries wonder, and (ロ) 詠嘆を表わす, wonder, exclamation; and it adds 平安以後はおおむね「かな」となる, from the Heian period on it mostly becomes かな. デジタル大辞泉 sets this very poem under its second sense, 感動・詠嘆を表す。…だなあ, expressing feeling, exclamation: ah, it is …!, where its first is 感動を込めた疑問の意を表す, a question charged with feeling [12]. The reading of 天の原 as あまのはら and of 出でし as いでし is spelled out in the kana of the Kokinshū's typeset of 1892 and of 日国's quotation [1][2].

The text in English. Two renderings show the division. Clay MacCauley, in 1899, asks: Is the moon the same / That on Mount Mikasa rose, / In the land of Kasuga?; Helen Craig McCullough, in 1985, affirms: I see the same moon / that came up over the hill / of Mikasa at Kasuga [13][14]. Both verse renderings say the same, and the Japanese has no word for it; MacCauley's literal translation does without it.

The historical record

905–914. The Kokin wakashū, book nine, travel. The Kokinshū, ordered by imperial command in 905 and finished, by the usual account, about 914 [3], opens its ninth book, 羇旅歌, poems of travel, with this poem [1][13]. In the typeset of 1892 the heading reads もろこしにて月をみてよめる, composed on seeing the moon in China, the poet 安倍仲麿, and the poem あまのはらふりさけみればかすがなるみかさの山にいでし月かも [1]. A note follows the poem, as the same typeset gives it [1]:

この歌は。むかしなかまろを。もろこしに。物ならはしにつかはしたりけるに。あまたの年をへて。えかへりまうでこざりけるを。このくにより。又つかひまかりいたりけるに。たぐひてまうできなんとて。いでたりけるに。めいしうといふ所の海べにて。かのくにの人。うまのはなむけしけり。よるになりて。月のいとおもしろくさし出たりけるをみてよめるとなん。かたりつたふる。

Of this poem: long ago Nakamaro was sent to China to study, and for many years could not come home; when envoys went there again from this country, he set out to come back with them, and on the shore at a place called Meishū the people of that country gave him a farewell. When night came, he saw the moon rise, very lovely, and made this poem: so it is told. The note's last words, となん。かたりつたふる, so it is told, handed down, make the occasion a report [1]. めいしう is 明州, as the Tosa nikki's editor of 1892 writes the Kokinshū note's place name, and McCullough notes it as an old name for Ningbo in Zhejiang Province [5][13]. A manuscript of the Kokinshū copied in 1471 gives the same heading, the poet as 安倍仲麿, the poem, and the note in the same sequence, and its heading ends よみける where the typeset has よめる [15].

935. The Tosa nikki. Ki no Tsurayuki 紀貫之's diary of the voyage home from Tosa to the capital, written in kana in the voice of a woman, tells the story again, under the twentieth day, when the moon rises out of the sea with no mountain's edge for it to rise from [16][5]. In the typeset annotated by Sasaki Nobutsuna 佐佐木信綱 in 1892, the people of that land give Nakamaro a farewell and make Chinese poems, and stay on until the moon of the twentieth night comes up out of the sea; then Nakamaro says that in his country gods have made such poems since the age of the gods, and people high and low make them now at partings, in joy and in sorrow [5]. The poem follows, with another first line [5]:

青海原ふりさけ見れバ春日なる三笠の山にいでしつきかもとぞよめりける。かの國の人、聞知るまじくおぼえたれども、ことの心を、をとこ文字に、さまを書きいだして、こゝの詞傳へたる人にいひ知らせければ、心をや聞得たりけん。いと思ひの外になんめでける。もろこしと、この國とハ、ことことなるものなれど、月の影ハ同じことなるべければ、人の心も同じことにやあらん。

"Looking far out across the blue sea plain, the moon that rose over Mount Mikasa at Kasuga", so he composed. Though he thought the people of that land would not understand it, he wrote out the sense in men's letters and told it to one who carried our language, and they seem to have taken its heart, and praised it far beyond what he expected. China and this land are different, but the moon's light must be the same, and so perhaps people's hearts are the same too. Sasaki's headnote takes the men's letters as the poem's sense put into Chinese characters, and the man who carried it as an interpreter [5]. The same headnote sets 青海原 beside the Kokinshū's 天の原 and doubts the occasion: 此歌のこと古今集にもこの趣に左注あれど此時の歌とは聞えず, the Kokinshū too has a note to this effect on this poem, but it does not sound like a poem of this moment, and adds that a work it calls 創見 also takes it for a poem of some other occasion [5].

The man, and the occasion, in the reference works. The dictionaries opened agree that Abe no Nakamaro went to Tang with the embassy of 717, served the emperor Xuanzong under a Chinese name (朝衡 in 日国; 仲満, then 朝衡, in the ブリタニカ), and died in China in 770; they differ on the year of his birth (698 or 701) and on the year and the port of the voyage home that ended in shipwreck, 752 from 蘇州 in the 改訂新版 世界大百科事典, 753 in 日国, and 753 from 明州 in the ブリタニカ国際大百科事典, which adds that the night was a full moon and that he made this poem then and moved the Chinese to admiration, という, it is said [4]. Tōno Haruyuki 東野治之, in the 世界大百科, names three views of the poem: 752年仲麻呂が唐を離れるに際して詠んだとする説がある一方，長安での望郷歌とする説や，古歌を後人が仲麻呂に付会したとする説もある, there is the view that Nakamaro composed it on leaving Tang in 752, and there are also the views that it is a poem of homesickness made in Chang'an, and that it is an old poem which later people attached to Nakamaro [4].

The poem in English

1899. Clay MacCauley. Hyakunin-isshu (Single Songs of a Hundred Poets), in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, a translation of the Hyakunin isshu 百人一首, the anthology of one poem each by a hundred poets, in which this is the seventh [14][4]. His literal translation asks, with no same in it: When I look afar (o'er) Heaven's Plain, is it the moon (that has) come forth upon the mountain of Mikasa being in Kasuga? His note reads mo as sign of emphasis upon the antecedent thought, and his metrical version, titled A Thought of Home, asks again: When I look abroad / O'er the wide-stretched "Plain of Heaven," / Is the moon the same / That on Mount Mikasa rose, / In the land of Kasuga? [14]. The same enters between his literal line and his verse.

1985. Helen Craig McCullough. Kokin Wakashū, poem 406, Composed on seeing the moon in China: When I gaze far out / across the plain of heaven, / I see the same moon / that came up over the hill / of Mikasa at Kasuga, with the left note in full, which ends This poem is said to have been composed after nightfall, when Nakamaro noticed that an extraordinarily beautiful moon had risen, and a footnote: This composition by Nakamaro is the earliest identifiable Kokinshū poem [13]. She reads the かも as statement, and she too has the same.

Today. JMdict gives 天の原 as the sky; the heavens [7]. The work order's English is the house's own: Looking up across the sky: is it the moon that rose over Mount Mikasa at Kasuga? It takes MacCauley's side of the かも, as a question, where this history's title takes the exclamation; both are readings the dictionary allows [12]. A rendering should keep the moon as one the poet saw rise (the き of 出でし), and should not add same without saying that the Japanese leaves it to the reader, as the Tosa nikki's 月の影ハ同じこと does [5].

A reading

The poem says no more than this: looking far out across the sky, the moon that rose over Mikasa at Kasuga. Everything else, the shore, the farewell, the voyage, comes from the note under it, which the Kokinshū itself calls a story handed down, and from the Tosa nikki's retelling [1][5]. I keep the story as the anthology keeps it, told and not vouched for; the 世界大百科 holds two other views, and the 1892 headnote doubts it [4][5].

On the last word I read かも as exclamation, 日国's (ロ), and I hear the wonder of (イ) in it, without a question. デジタル大辞泉 sets this very poem under its sense of exclamation, and two more things in the entries decide it for me [12]. The 日国 gives as its Kokinshū example of (ロ) a line that ends as this one does, on a noun and かも, 「…たなびく山の花のかげかも」, the shadow of the flowers on the trailing hills [12]. And 出でし, with き, is a moon the speaker himself saw rise [11]. A man who saw that moon over Mikasa does not ask whether this is it; he knows it, and the knowing is the poem. MacCauley's is it and McCullough's I see are both faithful to a word that held both; I sign the recognition. The same of both English versions is the Tosa nikki's thought made explicit, and the poem is better without it, since the line names the moon once, as the one that rose there, and lets the reader supply the distance. Signed, 典.

Notes

The poet's name. Both Kokinshū witnesses read for this history write 安倍仲麿; the dictionaries head him 阿倍仲麻呂, and the 日本大百科全書 notes 安倍にもつくる, also written 安倍; the Tosa nikki typeset writes 安部の仲麿 [1][15][4][5].

The heading. The typeset of 1892 reads もろこしにて月をみてよめる; the manuscript of 1471 reads もろこしにて月を見てよみける [1][15].

The first line. 天の原 in the Kokinshū; 青海原, the blue sea plain, in the Tosa nikki typeset of 1892 [1][5].

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Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of Abe no Nakamaro - Looking up far across the sky, The moon that rose over Mount Mikasa at Kasuga (ama no hara furisake mireba kasuga naru mikasa no yama ni ideshi tsuki kamo) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
天の原ふりさけ見れば春日なるVB5JBlock
Japanese Scroll of Abe no Nakamaro - Looking up far across the sky, The moon that rose over Mount Mikasa at Kasuga (ama no hara furisake mireba kasuga naru mikasa no yama ni ideshi tsuki kamo) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
天の原ふりさけ見れば春日なるVC5JCursive
Japanese Scroll of Abe no Nakamaro - Looking up far across the sky, The moon that rose over Mount Mikasa at Kasuga (ama no hara furisake mireba kasuga naru mikasa no yama ni ideshi tsuki kamo) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (Eri's Choice)
天の原ふりさけ見れば春日なるVD5JEri's Choice
Japanese Scroll of Abe no Nakamaro - Looking up far across the sky, The moon that rose over Mount Mikasa at Kasuga (ama no hara furisake mireba kasuga naru mikasa no yama ni ideshi tsuki kamo) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
天の原ふりさけ見れば春日なるVS5JSemi-Cursive

References

  1. 紀貫之 等奉勅撰, 『古今和歌集』, 磯部太郎兵衛 ほか, Tokyo, 1892, 巻第九, p. 47, scan 35, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/873275/1/35
  2. 「振り放け見る」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%8C%AF%E3%82%8A%E6%94%BE%E3%81%91%E8%A6%8B%E3%82%8B-621381
  3. 「古今和歌集」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%8F%A4%E4%BB%8A%E5%92%8C%E6%AD%8C%E9%9B%86-63702
  4. 「阿倍仲麻呂」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, 改訂新版 世界大百科事典 (東野治之), ブリタニカ国際大百科事典 and 日本大百科全書, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%98%BF%E5%80%8D%E4%BB%B2%E9%BA%BB%E5%91%82-26972
  5. 紀貫之, 佐佐木信綱 注, 『校註土佐日記』, 東京堂, Tokyo, 1892, pp. 19–20, scans 13–14, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/888761/1/13
  6. 「天の原」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%A4%A9%E3%81%AE%E5%8E%9F-427142
  7. JMdict (EDRDG), entry 1438240, 天の原, at jisho.org. https://jisho.org/word/%E5%A4%A9%E3%81%AE%E5%8E%9F
  8. 「三笠山」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, デジタル大辞泉 and 日本大百科全書, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%B8%89%E7%AC%A0%E5%B1%B1-637241
  9. 「なり」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%81%AA%E3%82%8A-590074
  10. 「出づ」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%87%BA%E3%81%A5-432419
  11. 「き」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%81%8D-471819
  12. 「かも」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%81%8B%E3%82%82-466899
  13. Helen Craig McCullough, Kokin Wakashū: The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry, with Tosa Nikki and Shinsen Waka, Stanford University Press, 1985, poem 406, p. 97, read on the house's shelf.
  14. Clay MacCauley, "Hyakunin-isshu (Single Songs of a Hundred Poets)", Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, vol. XXVII, part IV, December 1899 (the part's wrapper; the Society's list of publications, Internet Archive transactionsasi09japagoog leaf n839), poem 7, pp. 11–12, read on the house's shelf.
  15. 『古今和謌集』, manuscript, 文明3 (1471), 国文学研究資料館 99-3, 巻第九, canvas 66, at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/200003051/66
  16. 「土佐日記」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%9C%9F%E4%BD%90%E6%97%A5%E8%A8%98-105064

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · Takase Studios (an address check by script), 2026-10-21, citations — the cited web addresses opened and the quoted words looked for at each; every address answered with the words sought; the books held here carry no address; nothing found to differ · two fresh-context readers per round (Claude), 2026-10-21, every claim in the page's summary block traced to its source, claim by claim: round 1 FAIL on a reader's finding of a wrong fact (a heading that gave a priority claim and a scene as fact), the other reader passing; round 2 PASS, both; corrections made

Research depth: step 3 of our 10-step ladder, foundation complete · October 2026

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 天の原ふりさけ見れば春日なる三笠の山に出でし月かも (ama no hara furisake mireba kasuga naru mikasa no yama ni ideshi tsuki kamo)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/nakamaro-ama-no-hara-furisake-mireba.