In autumn nights long
Do they forget the spring days?
Is it perhaps so?
Does the autumn mist surpass
Spring’s soft haze a thousandfold?
- Meaning
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In the long nights of autumn, do people forget the gentle days of spring? Does the autumn mist surpass the spring haze a thousandfold?
- Commentary
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94. Autumn Nights
There was once a man who, for some reason, had stopped going to visit a woman. The woman later took another man, yet because she had a child with the former man, she still sent him occasional messages, though they were no longer intimate.
The woman was skilled at painting, and at the former man’s request she had gone to paint a picture for him. Yet when the day came, she was delayed by a day or two because her present lover had come to visit. The former man felt bitter about this.
The poem was composed by the former man with a tone of irony. It was autumn.
The phrase “autumn night” suggests the long nights the woman now spends with her new husband, and it also plays on the word “aki,” meaning both “autumn” and “to grow weary.” The poem implies that she has grown weary of the former man and is now satisfied with the present one. From the former man’s point of view, the reason his requested painting was delayed was simply that another man had come to her, so it is understandable that he would speak with such irony.
- Source
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Ise Monogatari
- Other
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