Moss has overgrown
the gaps between the boards of
my old home's eaves, and
the moon comes leaking through them
less than I had thought it would
- Meaning
-
Moss has grown over the gaps in the eaves of my old home, and less moonlight leaks through than I had imagined it would.
- Commentary
-
Volume Three: The Lesser Captain Returns to the Capital
As Naritsune and Yasuyori left the Suhama Hall and drew nearer the capital, joy became harder to hide—and so did the parting ahead of them. A carriage had been sent for Yasuyori too, but he would not get into it, saying he could not bear to part now, and rode instead on the back of Naritsune's carriage as far as the Seventh Avenue riverbed, and even there could not bring himself to go. A companion of half a day beneath the blossoms, a friend of one night under the moon, a stranger sheltering from a shower under the same tree—even these are hard to leave. How much more these two, who had spent two years together in the misery of that island, in the boat, on the waves, bearing the same karma.
Naritsune went to his father-in-law's house. His mother had been waiting since the day before and, unable to finish saying that it was only because he had lived, collapsed in tears. His wife and the nurse Rokujō rejoiced too, though Rokujō's black hair had gone white with accumulated grief, and his wife, once so lovely, was so wasted that she scarcely seemed the same woman. The son who had been three when he left the capital was grown enough to wear his hair bound, and beside him stood a child of about three. Who is that, he asked; and Rokujō said only, "That is the one, when you went down—" and pressed her sleeve to her face. He understood at last, remembering how his wife had seemed to be suffering when he set out, and marveled that the child had grown so strong.
Naritsune served the retired emperor again and rose to Consultant and Middle Captain. Yasuyori settled at his villa at Sōrin-ji in the Eastern Hills, living as a man who had left the world, and there wrote the Hōbutsushū. This poem is what he felt on returning to the capital.
In the poor hut on Kikai-ga-shima, rain and moonlight alike came down with nothing to stop them. He had supposed that back in the capital he would be under a proper roof; and arriving, he finds the boards of his own eaves overgrown with moss. The years of his absence have become the thickness of that moss.
The heart of it is "less than I had thought." He is measuring the ruin he had pictured from the island against the ruin he finds—but what is said not to come through is moonlight. The moon he used to look up at on the island was a moon with nothing between. Relief at being home and the knowledge that he will not see that moon again are folded into the same phrase.
Just before this, the tale gives Naritsune's homecoming as a family reunion, tearful and crowded. Set after it, Yasuyori's poem is quiet, and not one person appears in it. The difference between two homecomings from the same island is shown by what the poem contains. Yasuyori would go on to shut himself up at Sōrin-ji and write the Hōbutsushū.
furusato……one's native place; here, his own house in the capital.
noki no itama……the gaps between the boards of the eaves.
koke mushite……overgrown with moss.
omoishi hodo wa……as much as I had imagined.
moranu……does not leak through.
Sōrin-ji……a temple in the Eastern Hills where Yasuyori had a villa.
Hōbutsushū……the collection of Buddhist tales compiled by Yasuyori.
Saishō Chūjō……the title of a Consultant who also held the post of Middle Captain.
ichiju no kage……the shade of a single tree; a Buddhist figure for a slight but karmic connection.
- Source
-
Heike Monogatari
- Other
-