Matsuyama’s waves
keep the old, familiar face,
never changing.
Yet you, my beloved,
fade, losing even form.

Meaning

The waves that break upon the shore of Matsuyama, long celebrated in old poems, seem as they have always been, unchanged. And yet you—whom I believed to be just as eternal and enduring—are changing more and more, as though you were fading from this world itself, until even the trace of your former shape is being lost.

Commentary

Volume One: Shiramine
This poem by Saigyō draws on a verse in the Kokinshū, Book Twenty: “If I were to harbor a faithless heart toward you, then even the waves would cross Sue no Matsuyama.”
The word kata is a pivot word meaning both tidal flat and form, linked by association with waves. Drawing on the Kokinshū poem,
The poet suggests, “I have not turned away from you with a faithless heart; therefore the scene of the waves at Matsuyama should not change. And yet you, on your side, change more and more, to the point that even your very form seems to be disappearing,” and the poem carries a faint tone of reproach.
<The reader (the ‘I’) intends this poem to persuade and soothe the Retired Emperor, ensnared by the karma of past lives; yet in the poem’s phrasing there seeps through, instead, a tender sympathy and sorrow for one who is losing even their form.>

Author

Ueda Akinari

Source

Ugetsu Monogatari

Other

Matsuyama’s waves keep the old, familiar face, never changing. Yet you, my beloved, fade, losing even form.

Matsuyama’s waves
keep the old, familiar face,
never changing.
Yet you, my beloved,
fade, losing even form.