The parted hair
we once compared in length
has passed my shoulders—
if not you, then who
shall raise it up for me?
- Meaning
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The parted hair we once compared has now grown past my shoulders; if not you, who else could perform the hair-raising for me?
- Commentary
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Episode Twenty-Three: "By the well-curb"
Long ago, children who played together by a shared well grew shy of one another as they came of age.
Yet the boy wished to make the girl his wife, and the girl likewise continued to think of him as her husband. Though her parents tried to marry her to another man, she firmly refused.
This poem is the woman’s reply to the man’s poem, "By the well-curb of the round well we once stood—my childish height has surely grown beyond it while I have not seen you."
She answers that if it is not he, then who else could become her husband.
After this exchange, the two were married as they had wished.
The hair-raising ceremony was performed not by the husband himself but by the parents, and took place after the marriage had been decided.
- Source
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Ise Monogatari
- Other
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