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.
- Meaning
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It grieves me to think that he may still believe that someday we might meet again, not knowing the state I am in, living as though scarcely even alive.
- Commentary
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65. Wailing as the "Self-From"
A certain woman served the emperor and received his favor. She was a cousin of the emperor’s mother, the lady known as the Nyōgo, and she was permitted to wear robes of the forbidden colors. From her youth she had known a man of the Ariwara family who served in the Hall of the Palace in the Seiryōden. The man was allowed to enter the women’s quarters of the palace.
He often went in and out of the rear palace and met the woman. Yet she said that if they continued to meet in this way, someday their guilt would be discovered and they would ruin themselves, but the man paid no heed. The woman worried that if she kept her distance he might give up, and so she returned to her home. The man too eventually feared the excess of his own love and struggled to restrain his feelings, but his longing only grew deeper and more painful.
At last their relationship was discovered by the emperor, and the man was exiled from the capital. The woman was confined in a storehouse and punished by the emperor’s mother, who was her cousin.
While the woman wept in the storehouse, the man who had been exiled from the capital came every night from another province. He played the flute beautifully and sang with a moving voice. By the sound she knew that the man was nearby.
This poem was composed by the woman as she thought of the man who had come close to her.
The poem portrays a man and a woman who, though knowing their relationship was not desirable, continued it until they ruined themselves, and were finally torn apart so completely that they could not meet even while near one another.
In the traditional identification of the tale, the man is :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0} and the woman is :contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}. Takako was in the position of receiving the emperor’s favor, and Narihira too was of imperial lineage as the son of Prince Abo. From the viewpoint of others, Narihira was pursuing a woman favored by the emperor, and thus their relationship must have been extremely precarious.
- Source
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Ise Monogatari
- Other
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