Was it that my prayer
to the god was heard? So clear
a sign has appeared,
showing itself here before
my eyes in living color
- Meaning
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Was it that my prayer to the god was heard? So clear a sign has shown itself here before my eyes, in visible color.
- Commentary
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Volume Seven: The Pilgrimage to Chikubushima
In the second year of Juei, the Taira forces sent north against Kiso Yoshinaka reached Shiozu and Kaizu in Ōmi. Out on the lake lay the island of Chikubushima. Tsunemasa, Assistant Master of the Empress's Household, was a man of deep refinement, and he crossed to the island with Aritsune and five or six attendants.
It was past the middle of the fourth month, and spring was going out. The warbler's song had grown faint and the first note of the cuckoo seemed near. Setting foot on the island, he found it lovely beyond speech. The Isles of the Blessed that the First Emperor of Qin and Emperor Wu of Han searched for in vain must have looked like this. An old sutra speaks of a lake within the world of men holding a mountain of crystal grown up from the foundations of the earth, where heavenly women dwell; perhaps it means this island.
Tsunemasa knelt before the god of Chikubushima and prayed a while with his whole heart. Dusk gathered, and the moon of the eighteenth night rose and lit the lake as bright as day. The shrine buildings and the country around them took on, in that light, a beauty different from the day's.
This is a fine occasion, said the priest; let us hear the lute for which you are famous—and produced an instrument the temple owned. It was an art he loved, and the mood was on him, so Tsunemasa gladly began. When he came to the secret pieces Jōgen and Sekishō, the very air and the grass and the trees and the people seemed to become one, and only the clear sound of the lute moved over the quiet night water. The god too, it seems, was moved by his playing: a white dragon appeared on Tsunemasa's sleeve.
In his joy he wept, and composed this poem. Taking it for a good omen, he went back in high spirits to the camp on the shore.
Chihayaburu is a fixed epithet attaching to "gods." The oracle that appeared as insect holes in the nagi leaves in Volume Two also began with it. The Tale of the Heike uses the word repeatedly as the mark of a poem where god and verse meet.
Shiruku means clearly, and "a color appearing" refers to the white dragon showing itself. The joy is that of having his prayer answered in a form he could see. He never says what he prayed for; on the eve of a march north it did not need saying.
After this the Taira are shattered at Kurikara, beaten at Shinohara, and driven from the capital. The story of a god appearing at Chikubushima is set immediately before all of that. Tsunemasa himself will return his lute to Ninna-ji later in this volume and be killed in Volume Nine. The man who moved a god with lute and poem gives back the lute and leaves the capital.
chihayaburu……a fixed epithet attaching to "gods."
inori……a prayer.
kanaeba ya……was it because it was granted?
shiruku……clearly, unmistakably.
iro no araware……a sign appearing in visible form.
Chikubushima……an island in the north of Lake Biwa, sacred to Benzaiten.
Tsunemasa……Taira no Tsunemasa, son of Tsunemori and elder brother of Atsumori; a master of the lute.
Jōgen, Sekishō……secret pieces of the lute repertory.
hakuryū……a white dragon; here the manifestation of the island's deity.
Hōraidō……the legendary abode of the immortals.
- Source
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Heike Monogatari
- Other
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