I alone, I thought,
had one so given to thought—
none other there was;
yet beneath the water’s
surface, there was one more.
- Meaning
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I thought that there was surely no one so given to anxious thought as I, yet beneath the surface of the basin’s water there was another.
- Commentary
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Episode Twenty-Seven: "I alone"
A certain man went to a woman’s place and stayed for a single night, and after that he did not go again.
This poem was composed by the woman as she washed her hands and, seeing her own reflection in the surface of the basin’s water, recited it.
- Source
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Ise Monogatari
- Other
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Knowing not, perhaps,
that I am like a shore
where no miru grows,
the fisherman, not weary,
drags his feet and comes.
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Unaware, somehow,
at my sleeves the harbor
is all in tumult;
only because a great
Chinese ship has drawn near.
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At the water’s mouth,
am I perhaps seen there?—
even the frogs,
beneath the water, raise
all their voices as one.
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Why has it come to pass
that thus our meeting time
has grown so hard to gain?—
though we had bound our vow
as if to let no water leak.