The sprouting grasses
and the withering grasses
share one open field—
which of them can hope to end
without the coming of fall
- Meaning
-
The grass that puts out new shoots and the grass that withers away are grasses of the same field. Which of them could ever reach its end without meeting the autumn?
- Commentary
-
Volume One: Giō
Volume One of The Tale of the Heike begins with the origins of the Taira line, then moves through Tadamori's admission to the palace, Kiyomori's rise, the splendor of the clan, and the armed protest of the Enryaku-ji monks. Set in the very midst of that splendor is the story of the shirabyōshi dancer Giō.
Giō lived in the capital with her younger sister Gijo and their mother Toji. Her dancing and her beauty caught the eye of Taira no Kiyomori, and for three years she enjoyed his favor; a monthly allowance arrived without fail, and the household was secure. Then a young dancer from Kaga, Hotoke Gozen, came to present herself. Kiyomori turned her away at the gate, but Giō interceded and had her admitted—whereupon Kiyomori was so taken with the newcomer's singing and dancing that he drove Giō from the house at once. Ousted by the very woman she had helped, and unable to argue, Giō left the Nishi-Hachijō mansion where she had lived for three years. As she went, she wrote this poem on the paper door of her room.
After she left, the allowance stopped and the talk of the capital shifted to Hotoke Gozen. The following spring Kiyomori summoned Giō to entertain his bored new favorite, making her sing and dance before the company to her humiliation. Unable to bear it, Giō cut off her hair at twenty-one and withdrew to a hut in Sagano with her sister and mother. In time a knock came at that hut's door—Hotoke Gozen, who had read the poem on the door and understood what awaited her.
The poem sets the sprouting grass beside the withering grass and says that both belong to the same field: the flourishing Hotoke Gozen and the discarded Giō, seen as grasses growing in one meadow.
Everything turns on the word aki in the lower verse, which means both the season of autumn and the weariness of a lover who has tired of one. When autumn comes, every grass in the field withers—meaning that the day Kiyomori tires of her will come to anyone. The strength of the poem lies in its refusal to use a single word of reproach, stating the matter instead as a simple law of the grasses.
The verse then works as the seed of what follows, leading Hotoke Gozen to take vows. It is one of the few places in Volume One where a poem moves the story itself.
moe-izu……to put out shoots, to sprout.
karuru……to wither; some read in it an echo of karuru, "to part, to grow distant."
nobe……an open field, a meadow.
aki……autumn, with a pun on aki, a lover's weariness.
hatsu……to come to an end, to be finished.
shirabyōshi……a female entertainer of the late Heian period who sang and danced in men's dress.
Nishi-Hachijō……Taira no Kiyomori's mansion in the capital.
Toji……a respectful term for an older woman; here the name of Giō's mother.
- Source
-
Heike Monogatari
- Other
-