Even so, my heart,
thinking he would return,
was taken in by it—
how have I lived in this world
till today, this life of mine?
- Meaning
-
Even so, my heart, believing he would surely return, was taken in and led on by that hope; and so, against all odds, I have gone on living in this world until today. Is this what my life has been?
- Commentary
-
Volume Two, Asaji ga Yado.
This is the poem composed by Miyaki before her death.
Though the man failed to keep his promise, she did not abandon hope and continued to wait for his return and the fulfillment of that promise. Led on by her own heart, she cannot help but lament and resign herself to the thought that she has, in the end, been betrayed.
She looks back upon her own life as a course traced by a heart drawn along by natural affection, and acknowledges it as such.
Her husband Katsushirō went to the capital to trade. He promised his wife that he would return that autumn, but seven years passed as he was set upon by bandits and fell ill.
Miyaki died the year after Katsushirō went to the capital, and when Katsushirō returned after seven years, he was reunited with Miyaki. The next morning, however, he learned from the ruined house and the poem she had left behind that the Miyaki he had met was a ghost.
- Author
-
Ueda Akinari
- Source
-
Ugetsu Monogatari
- Other
-
-
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?
-
The sorrow of my life
no one will tell for me;
O bird of evening call
at Ōsaka Pass,
cry that autumn, too, has waned.
-
So greatly, even so,
the ancient Mama no Tegona
was loved like this—
so must she have been loved,
Mama no Tegona of Mama.
-
At Matsunoo peak,
in the quiet dawn of light,
I lift my gaze—
listening as I look up,
the Butsuhōsō cries.