Michinoku's pine
of Akoya hides it well—
the moon that ought to
come rising above the boughs
will not show itself at all
- Meaning
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Hidden behind the Akoya pine of Michinoku, the moon that ought to rise will not show itself at all.
- Commentary
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Volume Two: The Pine of Akoya
Volume Two of the Tale of the Heike begins to move when the Shishigatani conspiracy is exposed by Tada no Kurando Yukitsuna's informing. Saikō is seized and beheaded, and the Major Counselor Narichika, named as ringleader, is exiled to Kojima in Bizen. His son, the Tanba Lesser Captain Naritsune, is summoned away from his father-in-law Norimori and sent to Seno in Bitchū. Father and son were held within sight of one another, and neither was told where the other was.
One day Naritsune called his warder, Seno Kaneyasu, and asked how far it was to the Ariki retreat where his father was held. Kaneyasu, perhaps thinking the truth would only make it worse, put him off: twelve or thirteen days each way, he said.
The Lesser Captain, weeping, brought up an old story. When the Middle Captain Sanekata went down to Ōshū, he wished to see the Akoya pine, a famous site of that province, and searched the whole province without finding it. Returning empty-handed, he met an old man on the road. Asked where the pine stood, the man said it was not in that province but in Dewa. When Sanekata lamented that in these late days even the famous places of a province could be forgotten, and turned to go, the old man caught his sleeve and said: surely it is with this poem in mind that you are asking. He then explained that the verse dated from when the two provinces were one, and that since twelve districts had been cut away the pine must lie in Dewa. Sanekata crossed into Dewa and saw it there.
Having told the story, the Lesser Captain observed that word comes from Dazaifu to the capital in fifteen days, so it could not take twelve or thirteen between Bizen and Bitchū—three at most. The lie could only mean that Kaneyasu did not want him to know where his father was. He never raised the matter again.
The poem itself simply describes the famous Akoya pine of Michinoku: hidden by the boughs, the moon that ought to rise never appears. The two phrases "hidden among the trees" and "will not come out" narrow the whole verse to a single point—something obstructed and failing to show.
What matters is where the poem sits in the story. Naritsune has been kept from knowing where his father is. A thing that ought to rise, blocked by pines and never rising, is his own situation exactly. And it is directly after quoting the poem that he sees through his warder's lie: the verse works as the spark of his deduction.
The text states plainly that the poem dates from when the two provinces were one. It is not composed by a character in the Tale of the Heike but quoted by one.
Akoya no matsu……a famous poetic site in Michinoku, later Dewa; its location has long been disputed.
kogakurete……hidden among the trees.
izubeki……that ought to come out.
ide mo yaranu ka……it will not come out at all.
Sanekata no Chūjō……Fujiwara no Sanekata, a poet who went down as governor of Mutsu and died there.
meisho……a place with a poetic tradition attached to it.
Ariki no bessho……a mountain temple on the Bizen–Bitchū border; Narichika's place of exile.
Seno Kaneyasu……the Taira warrior charged with keeping Naritsune.
- Source
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Heike Monogatari
- Other
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