Set against the bell
tolling the hours of a night
spent in waiting—what
is the cry of the cock at
the morning of his going
- Meaning
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Set against the bell tolling through a night spent waiting, what is the cry of the cock on the morning he goes?
- Commentary
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Volume Five: Moon-Viewing
The ninth of the sixth month was set for beginning the new capital, the tenth of the eighth for raising the ridgepole, the thirteenth of the eleventh for the imperial removal. The old capital fell into ruin as the new one flourished. The wretched summer ended and autumn came, and by mid-autumn those in the new capital went out to see the moon at famous places: some followed the shore from Suma to Akashi in memory of the Shining Prince, crossed the Awaji strait, and saw the moon at Eshima; others watched it at Shirara, Fukiage, Waka-no-ura, Sumiyoshi, Naniwa, Takasago, and Onoe. Those left in the old capital saw it at Fushimi and Hirosawa.
Among them the Tokudaiji Major Captain of the Left, Sanesada, longing for the moon of the old capital, came up from Fukuhara after the tenth of the eighth month. Everything had changed. The few houses left had deep grass at their gates and heavy dew in their yards; mugwort and low reeds had taken over as roosts for birds, insects cried as though in reproach, and the ground had gone over to yellow chrysanthemum and purple orchid.
Of the old capital there remained only the Grand Empress at Konoe-gawara. Sanesada went to her residence and had an attendant knock at the main gate; a woman's voice from within asked who it could be, in a place where no one came to brush the dew from the weeds. Told that the Major Captain had come up from Fukuhara, she said the main gate was locked and he should enter by the small eastern door, and so he did. The Grand Empress, perhaps thinking of the past in her idleness, had had the shutters of the south hall raised and was playing the lute. Is this a dream, she said, or waking? Come in, come in.
In that household was a lady called Kojijū of the Waiting Night. She had been asked once which was the more moving, the night of waiting or the morning of parting, and this poem was her answer; from it she got her name.
On a night of waiting for a lover one hears the bell that marks the hours deepening—counting, and still he has not come. Against that, she says, the cock that announces the parting at dawn is nothing.
The question assumed that the morning of parting is the sadder. She overturns it: the harder thing is the time spent waiting without knowing whether he will come at all. The force of mono ka wa, which dismisses one side outright, is what made the poem famous.
The poem became her name, and the name became the center of the chapter. And shortly after, Sanesada's own retainer will be named for a poem too. Set inside an account of a capital falling into ruin are two stories of words that stick to a person and stay.
The Grand Empress who receives him is Tashi, made consort to two reigns in Volume One. The woman who wept then at a position without precedent is here twenty years later, alone in a ruined capital, playing her lute.
matsu yoi……the evening spent waiting for a lover.
fukeyuku kane……the bell marking the deepening of the night.
ashita……morning.
niwatori……the cock, whose crow signals the lovers' parting at dawn.
mono ka wa……it is nothing by comparison.
Matsuyoi no Kojijū……her nickname, taken from this poem.
Konoe-gawara no Ōmiya……Fujiwara no Tashi, the woman of Volume One.
yomogiu……ground overgrown with weeds.
asaji ga hara……a waste grown over with low reeds.
- Source
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Heike Monogatari
- Other
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