The cry of the cock
you once called a thing of no
account—why should it,
this morning of all mornings,
sound so sorrowful to me
- Meaning
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The cry of the cock, which you once called a thing of no account—why should it sound so sorrowful this morning of all mornings?
- Commentary
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Volume Five: Moon-Viewing
That night Sanesada sang, in the imayō form, of the old capital going to ruin: coming back to the old capital I find it gone over to a waste of low reeds; the moonlight falls on all of it without shadow, and only the autumn wind goes through me. Moonlight lay bright on the weeds of the garden and the wind moved them, with the crying of insects mixed in. By the third repetition tears had come to the eyes of both the Major Captain and the Grand Empress, and Kojijū had covered her face with her sleeve.
Having stayed the night, Sanesada took his leave. A little later he called for the retainer attending him: what must Kojijū of the Waiting Night be thinking, he said—she looked too sorry to see us go; run back and say something to her. The retainer ran back, found her, and gave her this poem.
He takes up mono ka wa, the phrase that gave her her name, and turns it over. You once called it a thing of no account; and this morning that same cock is sorrowful.
He is delivering his master's word, not his own feeling. Even so, as a poem it answers her best-known verse head on, and as wit it is first-rate: he raises the origin of a name she has carried all her life and overturns it on the spot.
Sanesada, hearing of it, was greatly impressed, and from then on the man was called the Chamberlain of Mono-ka-wa. Twice in one chapter a poem becomes a name. In an account of a capital disappearing under grass, what did not disappear was two nicknames.
mono ka wa……it is nothing by comparison; taken from Kojijū's poem.
kimi……a respectful form of address; here, Kojijū.
iiken……is said to have said.
niwatori no ne……the crow of the cock at daybreak.
kesa shimo……this morning above all.
nadoka……why, how is it that.
kurōdo……a retainer who handles a noble's business.
imayō……a popular song form of alternating seven and five syllables.
- Source
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Heike Monogatari
- Other
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