Did you come to me,
Or was it that I went there?
I cannot recall—
Was it dream or waking life,
Or a dream between the two?
- Meaning
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Did you come to me, or was it that I went to you? I cannot clearly remember. Was it a dream or reality—something seen in sleep, or something truly experienced while awake?
- Commentary
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69. Did You Come?
A certain man was sent to Ise as an official for the hunt, a post responsible for capturing birds and animals for court banquets and also for inspecting the administration of the provinces. The parent of the Saigū of the Ise Shrine—a princess who served the shrine and remained unmarried—said to her, "Attend to him with greater care than the usual officials." Following this instruction, the Saigū treated him with great courtesy.
On the second night after the man arrived, he insisted that he wished to meet the Saigū. Yet because of their respective positions—an imperial princess and a court official—and because there were many eyes about, they could not easily meet. Their sleeping quarters, however, were not far apart. Around midnight, when the attendants had fallen asleep, she went to the place where the man was staying. Overjoyed, he led her to his own chamber, and they remained together until about three in the morning. Before they could exchange words of intimacy, however, the woman departed.
The next morning the woman sent a letter to the man containing only this poem.
In the poem she says that she cannot tell whether what happened the previous night was a dream or reality. Perhaps, because the time together was so brief even for her, the poem also carries the wish to meet once more and confirm that it was real.
One theory about the origin of the title of the :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0} is that it came to be called "The Tale of Ise" from the manuscript tradition beginning with the Koshikibu no Naishi text in which this episode first appears; another theory holds that this episode forms the central core of the tale.
- Source
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Ise Monogatari
- Other
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