Only for one who
waits would the deepening bell
be hard to bear. Now
it is the cock at morning,
crying your going, that hurts
- Meaning
-
Only for one who waits would the deepening bell be hard to bear. It is the cock at morning, crying your going, that hurts now.
- Commentary
-
Volume Five: Moon-Viewing
To the poem the retainer brought, she answered at once with this. When he returned and reported it, the Major Captain was much impressed; and it is from this exchange that the man came to be called the Chamberlain of Mono-ka-wa.
Sanesada then went back to Fukuhara. What remained in the old capital were the Grand Empress, Kojijū, and a house going under the grass.
She refutes her own best-known poem. For one who waits, yes, the bell would be hard; but this morning I am not waiting, I am seeing someone go. So it is the cock that hurts.
She grants that an old answer changes with circumstance. That poem was an answer given at one moment of a life, not a fixed truth—and it is the poet herself who says so. A woman who carries the name of the Waiting Night says that this morning is worse than any waiting night, and so turns the source of her own name inside out.
All three poems of the chapter turn on waiting and going. Sanesada goes; people go from the capital; an age goes. Under the form of a lovers' exchange, the whole chapter is held together by parting. That is why a ruined capital was chosen for its setting.
mataba koso……only if one is waiting.
tsurakarame……would surely be hard to bear.
kaeru ashita……the morning of going away.
niwatori no ne……the crow of the cock at daybreak.
uki……painful, wretched.
kinuginu……the morning after a night together; the parting then.
- Source
-
Heike Monogatari
- Other
-