Like a boat borne on
waves of Matsuyama’s sea,
washed in and then left—
soon it comes to emptiness.

Meaning

Like a boat borne on the waves that wash upon Matsuyama and drift ashore, only to be left to rot in vain, so too have I, having left the capital, come at last to wither away just as you sang.

Commentary

Volume One, Shiramine.

This poem is a reply to the poem, “The look of the waves at Matsuyama will not change, yet you, alas, have changed and grown distant,” composed by the protagonist of “Shiramine.” It is spoken by the Retired Emperor, who appears as a ghost and recites this verse.

The earlier poem, which views the Emperor’s misfortune as something like the workings of nature and pities the human heart crushed beneath it, is here answered by the Emperor himself, who looks back upon the ill fortune of his life in a mingling of resentment and resignation.

Author

Ueda Akinari

Source

Ugetsu Monogatari

Other

Now at this moment, when I don the heavenly robe— only now I know how dear you were to me.
Even meeting you floats on tears—my very self; to one like me, what use is the drug that grants no death?
Like a plover on waves of Matsuyama’s shore, my traces go on to the capital, yet I cry with sound alone.
Even if, my lord, the jeweled bed of old, though you once lay there, now that it has come to this, what use could it be?

Like a boat borne on waves of Matsuyama’s sea, washed in and then left— soon it comes to emptiness.

Like a boat borne on
waves of Matsuyama’s sea,
washed in and then left—
soon it comes to emptiness.