On the secret path
I tread unseen by others,
may the gatekeeper
who stands watch there each night
fall asleep night after night.
- Meaning
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On the secret path I tread unseen by others, may the gatekeeper who stands watch there each night fall asleep night after night.
- Commentary
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Episode Five: "My secret path"
A man was secretly going to meet a woman who lived around Fifth Avenue in the Eastern Capital.
As he could not enter through the gate, he went in and out through a broken place in the wall that children used as a path, but when the master of the house noticed this, he had a guard keep watch every night.
Unable to meet the woman, the man left this poem and went away.
The woman grieved at being unable to meet the man, and seeing this, the master of the house allowed the man to come and go.
Blocked from the path, the man neither forced his way through nor sought another route, but left a poem and went away; the woman grieved at being unable to meet him; and seeing this, the master of the house forgave the man. The poem reflects these gentle, innocent hearts that would hardly exist in reality.
As with "Is it not the moon? Is this spring not the spring of former days? Only my own self remains as I once was," the woman in question is the Nijō Empress Takako.
- Source
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Ise Monogatari
- Other
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