Unable to sink
beneath the sorrow, river
bamboo by the shore—
must I let flow through the world
a name without precedent
- Meaning
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Unable to sink under the weight of this grief, I stand like the bamboo at the river's edge—must I let my name drift through the world as something for which there is no precedent?
- Commentary
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Volume One: The Empress of Two Reigns
While the power of the Taira went on growing, an uneasy air was moving through the imperial house as well. After the death of the Retired Emperor Toba, Emperor Nijō began to defy his father, the Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa, in everything. What astonished the world most was his decision to take as his own consort the Grand Empress Dowager Tashi, who had been the consort of Emperor Konoe two reigns earlier.
Tashi was the daughter of Kin'yoshi, the Ōimikado Minister of the Right, and was said to be the most beautiful woman in the realm. After Emperor Konoe's death she had left the palace and lived quietly at the Konoe-gawara residence. There the imperial command arrived, summoning her to court. For one woman to become the consort of two emperors was without precedent, and the nobles objected, but the emperor would not hear them.
Tashi lamented that if only she had vanished like dew on the same field when she lost Emperor Konoe, or taken vows then, she would not now be hearing such things. Her father Kin'yoshi urged her that once an imperial command has been issued there is no choice but to obey, adding that if a prince were born she would be mother of the nation and he himself grandfather to an emperor. Learning her father's true motive, she sank deeper into sorrow. It was around then, while idly practicing her writing, that she set down this poem.
Word of her state of mind spread, and people are said to have felt quiet sympathy for her. On the day of her entry into the palace she would not leave the house, and her father had to force her into the carriage. Inside the palace nothing had changed since Emperor Konoe's lifetime, and that only drew more tears.
Everything up to "river bamboo" functions as a preface leading into the word yo in the lower verse.
Fushi means both a joint of bamboo and a bitter turn of events. Yo means both the space between two bamboo joints and the world of men. The verb "to flow" belongs to the imagery of the river, so that bamboo, river, and the world of men are layered into a single riverside scene.
Bamboo at the water's edge is neither swept away nor able to sink; it simply stands, half in the current, exposed. Unable to follow Emperor Konoe in death or to leave the world, and placed in the unheard-of position of consort to two reigns, she finds her own situation exactly in that image. The poem is heavily worked, yet the craft never cools the grief.
ukifushi……a bitter turn of events, with a pun on fushi, a bamboo joint.
shizumi mo yarade……unable to sink all the way down.
kawa-take……bamboo growing at the river's edge.
yo……the world, with a pun on yo, the span between two bamboo joints.
tameshi naki……without precedent.
na wo nagasu……to let one's name spread abroad; "to flow" belongs to the river imagery.
judai……a woman's formal entry into the palace as imperial consort.
Taikōtaigōgū……the title given to the consort of an emperor two reigns past.
kokumo……the mother of a reigning emperor.
tenarai……writing out characters or verses at idle moments.
- Source
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Heike Monogatari
- Other
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