Like the creature that dwells
In seaweed cut by fishermen—
Called the "self-from"—
I will raise my voice and cry aloud;
Yet I shall not spite the world.
- Meaning
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Like the little "self-from" creature that lives in seaweed cut by fishermen, I will cry aloud with my voice; yet I will not hold the world in blame.
- Commentary
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65. Wailing as the "Self-From"
A certain woman longed for a man. Though she loved him deeply, their affair brought about disgrace: the emperor learned of the liaison, the man was exiled from the capital, and the woman was confined and punished. This poem was composed by the woman as she wept in the storehouse.
She compares herself to the small crustacean called "warekara" (the "self-from"), which lives in seaweed and whose shell splits as it dries. The name is a pun: it literally suggests "from oneself," so she says, in effect, that she will cry out herself and bear the pain, but she will not curse or repudiate the world for what has happened.
In the traditional identification of the tale, the man is and the woman is . The poem thus expresses the woman’s sorrowful resignation: she will lament loudly like the creature in the cut seaweed, yet she refuses to lay blame upon the world itself.
- Source
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Ise Monogatari
- Other
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To hide my longing—
I strive to bear it, yet am lost;
I have been overcome—
If, when we meet, it must be so,
Then be it so, come what may.
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Resolving not to love,
At the Mitarashi stream
I performed ablutions—
Yet even the gods, it seems,
Have refused to receive them.
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That he still may think
Surely we shall meet again—
That is what grieves me,
Not knowing the state I am in,
As one scarcely even alive.
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Though all in vain I go,
And only come back again,
Empty as before—
Yet in longing to see you
I will set out once again.