Leave-taking Near Shoku
Leave-taking Near Shoku - meaning Summary
Departing from a Fixed Fate
This short poem sketches a farewell scene near Shoku using vivid landscape detail. Steep roads, walls rising like faces, trees breaking through paving and freshets breaking ice show nature pressing into human order. The setting emphasizes movement and departure—horses, bridges of cloud—and culminates in a stoic note: human destinies are fixed and divination is unnecessary. The mood combines natural force with resignation to inevitability.
Read Complete AnalysesThey say the roads of Sanso are steep, Sheer as the mountains. The walls rise in a man's face, Clouds grow out of the hill at his horse's bridle. Sweet trees are on the paved way of the Shin, Their trunks burst through the paving, And freshets are bursting their ice in the midst of Shoku, a proud city. Men's fates are already set, There is no need of asking diviners.
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